Requiem
by katinki
Summary: COMPLETE. For seven decades, he has worn the collar of faith and service. Wandering the earth alone, he's searched for redemption and for the soul he can never possess. Until now - when a young woman enters his world and shatters everything he ever believed. AU.
1. Requiem aeternam

**Disclaimer:** Stephenie Meyer owns **_Twilight_ **and its characters. The **_Requiem_** **_Mass in D Minor_ **is a series of fourteen musical movements composed by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. It was left unfinished at his death and was completed by Franz Xaver Süssmayr.

**Scooterstale, **who is both my beta and more importantly, my wonderful friend, graciously edited this fic. It's amazing what she puts up with when it comes to me. Thank you, lady, for always making me look a lot better than I am. :)

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><p><strong>I. Requiem aeternam<strong>

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><p>"Bless me, Father, for I have sinned," he rasps.<p>

Edward lifts his head.

"It's been three months since my last confession…"

It's really been five.

"What are your sins, my child?" Edward responds, though the moment he asks, he already knows.

The small space is dark, but as if in broad daylight, he sees the boy's pale gray eyes close through the tiny squares of the screen. The air here is stale and stifling. He reeks of sex and sweat, and the bitter taint of amphetamines is impossible to miss

An addict. A street urchin. Yet another lost child. He's so very young.

"I… I–" he stutters, tripping over the thickness of his tongue. Shame is a black river, deep and dark.

Time wears on and the boy fumbles through his transgressions, talking past them, around them, incapable of admitting them all and their depths. His fingers tear into the paper thin cotton of his shirt, twisting and tugging and pulling in shaking agitation. He is ashamed to ask for absolution, believing himself low and unworthy because even as he kneels in confession, he dreams of needles and the rush of fire in his veins. His thoughts are like jagged barbs, murky and painful and warped by the poison he consumes.

Edward sighs quietly. "It's alright. Have no fear inside these walls, or of me. Tell me what you've done. No sin is unforgiveable."

A low whine answers him, followed by the wet patter of droplets on wood. And then more words come tumbling out, flowing like the salted water that pours from his eyes – drugs and drunkeness, lies and deceit, theft and violence and sex. Vivid images, ugly and debauched, spin the boy's thoughts, so fast and so furious. Sex for money, for pleasure, for punishment, so many sins of the body. Of using and of being used. Guilt and so much shame. It's almost unbearable.

"For these… and all the sins of my past life, Father, I'm sorry. So sorry," he chokes. "Please, help me."

Compassion wells within him. Softly, so softly, his voice liquid comfort, Edward grants him his penance and his pardon, offering him his absolution, even as he knows that the boy is too far gone, that he will be back again months from now if he does not kill himself. His poison is too strong.

~.~.~

They walk through the garden, two long shadows against splashes of late summer roses and violets.

"How are you liking it here?"

Behind his back, Edward's fingers clasp and he stares beyond the greenery to the stands of marble and granite by the water's edge. The oldest ones, stones carved by hand and chisel, are crumbling from the elements and age – long forgotten remnants. Beneath the low, sweeping bough of the distant beech, his own is faded now, a dull, lifeless gray, and the letters bearing his name are smooth to the touch. He saw it when he visited his mother.

"It's good to be home, Father Carlisle," is all he says. A northerly breeze whips past his ears, scattering already reckless strands of autumn.

The older man smiles politely. "That's right. Father Michael said you were originally from this area. How long has it been?"

It's been many, many years since Edward has been home.

It's been even longer since he heard a mind like the man's beside him. Unlike most, the priest's mind is almost a pleasant place to be. There is contentment there and soft-spoken joy and the strength of faith. It's a rare find, even here amongst the faithful. When they lock hands in greeting, he doesn't ponder the deathly chill of Edward's touch, nor does he question his late night hours of solitary study or his reticence to accept the camaraderie of others. Instead, selflessly, he wonders if Edward is truly at peace. He sees before him someone who is not a whole man, a spirit that has been broken and only partly mended, and at night, when his knees creak against worn floorboards, he prays that this new young one might one day be fulfilled.

Edward turns and one corner of his mouth pulls up into a strange half-smile. His eyes are alight with what Carlisle mistakenly assumes is amusement. Odd, here or anywhere, instead of brown or blue or even green, his irises are pale, honeyed amber with golden flecks that seem to dance. Depthless and ancient, they hide so many more years than his youthful countenance suggests. They hint at something nameless. Something _other_.

"A while."

"I see," Carlisle answers back, acknowledging but never addressing the secrets that Edward chooses to keep.

"You?"

Bright, baby blue eyes with crinkles at the corners stare up at him. "A while."

Edward smiles in full then because he knows that the older priest has been here for more than forty years. The aging priest knows the ins and outs of this city. He knows its people and its moods. He's been here long enough that, more often than not, his smooth tenor bears that of a Chicagoan cadence rather than the Leeds of his childhood. These stone walls are home.

Minutes tick by and both are silent. Carlisle's thoughts turn elsewhere and so do Edward's. Like a worrisome provider, Carlisle's are filled with balancing dollar signs against falling attendance, the slowly withering staff in the shelter and soup kitchen, and he's calculating how many hungering souls will be turned away this winter.

"How were the numbers yesterday?" Edward finally asks.

Carlisle frowns and fingers the edge of one dark sleeve. "Low, but it's almost time for school to start, so people take their vacations, I suppose. I'll need to move some things around to cover the shelter this month." He shakes his head and smiles again, though the deep valley between his brows remains. "We'll manage it fine. St. Mark's always scrapes by. And Shelley told me that she had a new shelter volunteer call. That's always a blessing." A spotted hand reaches up and brushes through blond-white cornsilk. "But they do seem to be getting fewer and fewer as the years go by."

Edward grimaces, nods, and then looks away. He knows this more than anyone.

~.~.~

A figure races through the trees, a dark wraith floating over the moonlit forest floor. Leaves rustle in his wake and a fine plume of dust kicks off his heels. His speed is incomprehensible, his black form nothing more than a whispering blur of darkness and light.

It's silent here in these woods; all life seems to halt at his passage. The creatures here know him for what he truly is, and they quiver in their nests and burrows until danger has departed.

Edward is hunting.

It's been too long now, more than three weeks since he last fed, and his throat is coated with ash and smoldering coals. In the mirror of an altar boy's eyes, his own were as black as soot. So as much as he is loathe to do so, he gives himself over to the demon within, knowing that if he does not, he risks too much.

Wild and tangy, a scent drifts on the breeze, and a low burn ignites in his chest, pulling and drawing him west. It's moving, its instincts driving it away from certain death, and the rhythmic thump of the animal's racing heart sounds like thunder in Edward's ears. It's all that he can hear and his mouth swamps.

Lithely, more animal than man, he springs across a murmuring brook, his steps no more than light kisses to the ground. Near a clearing filled with swaying wildflowers, Edward darts upward, climbing to an overhead branch where he can survey the land. Where the wind masks the cloying scent of the high predator. The _highest_.

A minute passes in utter silence but for the clap of heart valves opening and closing and the luscious _rush-rush_ of gushing blood through veins. Then far ahead, a tawny hide appears in the dark. Lean and muscular, with a maze of almond-colored bone between his quivering ears, the creature ventures closer and closer. Until Edward looks down and he can count the lashes that frame its wide, nervous eyes.

_Forgive me, Father, _he whispers by rote, _for __all the sins of my past life__._

Wind whips across his cheeks and his heels sink into soft ground.

The animal starts, huffing and kicking out, but Edward's arms form crushing steel bands that never falter. Wetly ripping, teeth part hide and flesh, and then muscle and sinew. Fat, viscous droplets scatter across his face and arms, and the raw scent of leaves and field grass assault his nostrils and tongue.

Edward closes his eyes as the veins snap. Rich, decadent warmth floods his mouth.

After all these years, Edward's tongue still does not expect the sourness, however, and the burn in his throat cools only so much. His demons clamor for something more, something better. Like a dying man in the desert, he sucks on the wound quickly and mindlessly, forcing down the lesser drink.

But as those last drops pass his lips, unbidden, images begin to flash across the backs of his closed lids. His teeth instinctively dig deeper and he moans in both ecstasy and despair.

_Dark eyed with olive skin and hair the color of roasted chestnuts, a woman cowers. Her face is a mask of terror and shock, surprised by the sudden intrusion of a man in her private quarters._

_A crooked finger extends and, 'Czerwone oczy!' spills from her rosebud lips._

_Red, he thinks – some vague memory he cannot place – but the rest is lost to him because the high neckline of her riding dress is torn away and there is a spider web of blue that he somehow now sees._

_Her pulse jumps. He can see it there under her skin and it's mesmerizing. The scent of her is excruciating, somehow sharper than it was in the park._

_Three days have passed since he stumbled from the alley, confused and in blinding agony, and Edward still doesn't know what he is. He only knows that he is a monster and that what he wants hides beneath her flesh. _

_Spreading plum-black stains appear where his fingers rest on her arm, and blood curdling screams ring in his ears, so loud that he can't stand it so he snaps her neck without realizing it. _

_And then it's all his; velvet and smooth, so succulent and warm, her blood is the most exquisite thing he's ever tasted. There's nothing he wants more._

Bones crackle inside the cage of his arms, and Edward's eyes open abruptly. Cool night air sucks into his lungs, and he slings the deer carcass away. He stands and the weight that never lifts seems heavier.

Edward bows his head and his hand dives into his pocket, automatically fingering the smooth edge of the collar he has worn for nearly seven decades. Seven decades of atonement.

Yet after all these years, no matter his penance, he still smells her, just as he still smells them all. Shaken, Edward stares down at the wreckage of the beast's broken body. It's now hollow and lifeless, eternally silent and at rest.

He is envious.

.

.

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><p><strong>Important notes (please read now because they are relevant for the entire story): <strong>

- I'll say this one time to avoid any confusion in future chapters: I've taken certain liberties and have made a few simplifications regarding the details of some aspects of Catholic dogma and protocol, as well as the roles and lives of its clergy.

- If you are thinking this will be lemony or in some way be a deviant sexual play on the priesthood, I'll go ahead and say, "Nope, no way, no how." There may or may not be sexual situations at some point. If there are, they will not be explicit or porny.

- This story is rather **AU**; meaning: please don't automatically assume canon anything.

**Fair warning:** as per my usual, I promise nothing. Those who know me know that I'm not really a rainbows and kitties kind of girl.

I always, always love hearing from you. It'd be great if you dropped me a line or two to let me know what you think.


	2. Kyrie eleison

**II. Kyrie eleison**

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><p>Head bowed, his knees sink into the velvet cushion behind the second pew.<p>

The nave is now empty of its weekday visitors. Three hours have passed since the last morning Mass, and like Carlisle said, it's vacation time for many.

For Edward, it's not empty at all. Instead, the space is filled with color and sound.

The lights are low, the chandeliers above on their dimmest setting. Long shadows dance across the aisles, misshapen dark images of the saints that line the walls. Ahead, however, like a saving beacon, the gilded reredos above the altar shines in the spotlights, casting a rainbow of colors that only his eyes can see. For a long moment, Edward's gaze is trapped by the distracting refraction of gold and mosaic.

Fingering the simple cross that adorns his chest, he closes his eyes and he listens to the ringing taps of sprinkling rain against the slate tiles overhead. Unlike those around him, his mind is vast, his faculties limitless. Edward hears each drop, individual amongst all others. He probably could count them if he chose.

Alone and in the quiet reverence of the empty church, Edward finally finds some measure of solace. The voices inside his head and behind the stone walls are now nothing more than whispers, and for a few brief moments, he can think about who he is and more importantly, _what_ he is not. Here, out in the open, not inside the wooden confessional, is where he prays his own prayers, where he admits the sins he cannot vocalize.

A thousand faces flicker. A thousand voices. A thousand pleas and a thousand deaths. Innocent and guilty, woman and man, young and old, they're all buried there beneath his skin, and their lifeless hearts thump inside his silent chest.

For all time and all ages, they are preserved, frozen in the perfect, crystalline memory of their killer.

Killer. Murderer. Slaughterer. A walking demon myth. Edward is all of these things, and the weight he now bears – the weight of the unforgivable and condemned – is their retribution.

His lips murmur the lines, quietly and swiftly running through the years. In the back of his mind, he hears his own voice say that all sins are forgivable, but that his throat still burns and that venom still drips from his teeth is proof that absolution is not for the soulless.

"Father Edward?"

Edward smiles before he looks up.

"Seth," he answers, shaking away from his silent self-damnation. "You're early."

The boy grins and for a moment, it's full of life and the happiness and naiveté of youth. Like Carlisle, his mind is one of few that are pure and kind of heart. He sees Edward as not only his confessor and teacher of alcolytic duties, but as something of a mentor and friend – albeit older – as well.

That's a rarity for Edward, as most instinctively shy away from casual interaction. Unwilling to acknowledge millennia of human evolution, they resign the natural, inborn drive to escape danger as merely a reaction to the perceived disparity caused by his station. A deep, unfamiliar warmth surges at the notion of a… _friend_.

"Don't tell me you rode here on that skateboard," he admonishes, nodding toward the colorful board beneath the boy's bony arms. Of course he did, but Edward plays his part with a chuckle.

"Yep. Mom wasn't too happy, but she finally said okay since she had to run to the hospital."

"How's your sister?"

Seth looks down and the toe of his tennis shoe scuffs against the stone floor. His thoughts bloom with the chill and discomfort of the unknown. His grin disappears and in its place is the frown of the aged and the forlorn.

"That bad?" Edward asks softly, gently resting his hand on Seth's narrow shoulder. Surprisingly – or perhaps, unsurprisingly – the boy doesn't flinch away. If anything, he leans, searching for comfort and strength.

"Doc says maybe next week she can come home for a while. She's, I don't know, she's tired." Seth looks up at Edward with wide, glassy eyes. "Dad's gone again, too. He went south to try to find a job. Bills, you know."

That last line is spoken in a voice much older than his mere fourteen years. It reminds Edward of that long ago decade of breadlines and stamps and of the charismatic man in a wheelchair who promised to end it all.

Edward doesn't say that all will be well or any of the shallow things that young priests say to assuage sorrow and worry. Instead, his grip tightens with controlled precision around Seth's shoulder and he nods in quiet empathy. He, too, knows the fear and pain of loss. As they light a candle and watch the wax slowly pool, liquid and dark, Seth's demeanor relaxes and his thoughts spin out to better places. Edward's, on the other hand, drown in the heat of the melted paraffin and turn inward once again.

Later, they walk side by side toward the sacristy. Seth puffs a hot breath of air, aimed at his too-long black bangs. An arm's length away, Edward can still feel the heat from his lungs, and even though he fed only days before, he purposefully thinks of anything and everything but the thump of the boy's heart and the candy-like scent of the blood that runs through his veins.

Distracting him from his remembrance, Seth muses, "Think Father Carlisle will let me help out in the shelter this year? Mom said I could."

"I believe so," Edward replies, looking high above their heads through the painted glass, grateful for distraction. He knows that Carlisle has already decided, but he doesn't say this, sensing that it will mean more coming from the eldest priest. But it's humbling that despite Seth's own turmoil, this fragile human child still thinks of others first. Always others.

Edward smiles. "They're short on staff this season. Want to go ask him now?"

**~.~.~**

The moment they walk through the swinging doors, Edward knows that something is wrong.

So very, _very_ wrong.

For as soon as Edward inhales a breath, expecting the pungency of meatloaf, spices, and the reek of the streets, his nostrils flare. Venom swamps his mouth, running down his throat in a torrential river of acid and fire.

A perfume like he's never smelled before taints the air and floods his lungs. His throat tightens, flaring to life. Deep down in the pit of his stomach, the river of flowing venom begins to boil and ignite, and its flames climb his throat to the tip of his tongue. It feels as though he's breathing Hell, and his body locks down, his mind emptying of thought.

All he can think about is finding the source of this luscious smell and _devouring_ it with unimaginable brutality.

"Father Edward!"

Vaguely, Edward recognizes the voice. But he inhales again, and it's lost.

"Edward! Seth, my boy! Come on over!"

Edward's eyes scan the room, a predator's gaze flitting from prey to prey, searching for its mark. There are no more than two dozen people in the room, all of whom he's met before. His shoulders tense and flex, rolling beneath black fabric. Edward could strike them all down in no more than thirty seconds.

"Father Edward? Are you okay?"

Mechanical in its motion, Edward's head turns, stone grating against stone. The boy's lips are moving, but sound doesn't register. When a low growl tumbles from Edward's lips, Seth's eyes widen and his feet propel him backward.

Edward flinches when he sees those innocent eyes. They startle him, and the barrage of the boy's questioning thoughts stills him from reaching forth. Swallowing acid, Edward merely nods, not trusting the solidity of his voice, and he balls his fists to contain the claws.

Seth's head tilts in confusion, but before he has time to ask again, Carlisle abruptly interrupts, slapping Edward across the shoulder. Even though it could never cause him pain, the impact is jarring, and coupled with Seth's worry, some measure of cogency returns.

Edward stops breathing.

"I hear you and Seth have been talking. If you think he's okay to volunteer here in the dining area… I guess that's good enough for me. His mom okayed it Sunday." Carlisle winks, teasing Seth for all he's worth.

How Carlisle doesn't see the raging creature in front of him, Edward doesn't know.

There's a long pause, and Carlisle looks to him for response. Edward doesn't want to breathe, but he can't stand the thought of Seth's fear in Carlisle as well.

"He'll be fine," Edward finally grates. The push of air through his lungs burns his tongue, nearly wiping away the remaining threads of sanity to which he holds so dear.

Still as if nothing at all is amiss, Carlisle grins a wide, indulgent grin and turns. "All right then, it's settled," he says to Seth. "Why don't you go on and help Jake out with the dishes."

They watch instantaneous joy spread across the boy's sun-kissed face as he jumps toward the kitchen. Edward marvels as Seth's thoughts immediately shun his prior disquiet, forgetting Edward's strange countenance and behavior. He believes that he saw something else. Everything is forgotten in the way humans always file away the unpleasant.

"Seth's a true blessing." Carlisle sighs and smoothes the front of his dark waistcoat. Through the haze of bloodlust, Edward hears gentle adoration, something so pure and so exceptional that it momentarily stuns him. "I've never seen such a kind soul."

"I know," Edward manages, fighting back another wave of fire. It's dampened now that he no longer breathes, but he needs to escape this room so that he can kill. He needs to hunt, to do something to douse these flames that he doesn't understand. Everyone in this room is at risk, and Edward can't bear the consequences if he were to slip now after so many decades – _here,_ of all places.

With what little air he has left, he adds, "He's a good kid."

Carlisle chuckles. "He's still a boy, though. I think he's already got eyes for our other new volunteer." He laughs again, his eyes crinkling in amusement. "Can't say I blame him. Bella's a catch. Forty years ago, I might have given up the cloth for a girl like her."

Following the line of Carlisle's gnarled forefinger, Edward's head slowly swivels, his mind instantly processing something very significant. There's someone here he didn't hear, someone who he would not have known was present had Carlisle not spoken.

His eyes catch immediately.

Across the room, there is a pale girl he's never seen before. Standing close to the door and busy serving one of the aged, she doesn't notice the scrutiny she's being paid.

Slight of build and smiling softly, this Bella is quietly beautiful, and without thought, he takes her in, cataloging. With flawless recall, he memorizes every last detail, from the long waves of dark hair that frame her face to the inward curve at her waist hidden by a kitchen apron to the lines of slender, feminine legs and thighs.

The voices in the room turn down into a low clamor, and Edward is not sure why, but his eyes won't leave her form. It's almost as though his vision is paralyzed, caught by something he can't comprehend, and there's a tug somewhere deep inside.

Only vaguely is Edward aware that the burning in his throat is intensifying again and that venom is seeping into his mouth in anticipation. But the longer he stares, the more he burns, and he hasn't even taken another breath.

"Now there's something I didn't think I'd see," Carlisle murmurs. He eyes Edward and laughs. "She's sucked you in, too. You be careful, son. Don't forget your vows over that one."

As if summoned somehow, Bella abruptly looks up. Seeing Carlisle, she waves and her teeth flash bright white. When her surprised gaze slides left and lands on him, Edward's body freezes. In his ears, there is a sudden stampede of wet, gurgling claps – quickened heartbeats – and the slosh of oh-so-perfect blood gushing through arteries and valves. The muscles in his throat twitch in demand, teasing for air, as if they _know_.

Automatically, speeding through a dozen prayers, Edward clutches the cross around his neck, but neither it nor God is any match for his demons.

Edward's fist closes, pulverizing metal, as his lungs betray him and suck in the most glorious scent he's ever smelled. It's perfect, and now that he knows his prey, bloodlust rages, overtaking all sensibility. Speech or clarity is impossible.

In less time than he can blink, everything Edward has built up shatters into a million pieces of raw hunger, abolishing his attempts at humanity and repentance. As his golden eyes blacken to the darkest night, his last centuries mean nothing. His restraint means nothing. The guilt he harbors is forgotten and meaningless.

In this moment, he _is_ violence. His monster has awoken.

And the only thing he can do is run.

.

.


	3. Dies irae

**III. Dies irae**

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><p>He runs for hours.<p>

Like a phantom, Edward streaks through forests and quiet glades, over hills and down shadowy valleys. He runs to escape the scent that's now etched into his memory and the reckless violence it ignites. He pours all of his bloodlust into the exertion and mindlessness of sheer, unbridled speed.

At the edge of a deep, ice-laden ravine, he finally stops. It's pitch black outside, and the stars overhead sparkle like diamonds against the darkest velvet. There are thousands overhead, all visible to him, especially up here, so far north where there is not even a hint of human light pollution.

The thirst is still wild in the back of his throat, still charring him from the inside and clawing his tongue, but it's at least manageable in the frigid air. Manageable now that he's run hundreds of miles and drained two large deer and one angry bear along the way. Yet despite the fact that his hollow shell is filled to the brim, he burns for her.

"God, what did I do?" he growls, glaring at the heavens. "Why? Why now? Why after all of these years?"

The stars wink and shine, mocking his pleas.

Of course, like any of his kind, Edward knows of _singers _and the siren call of that too-sweet blood. In his world, every demon has his angel. Only for Edward, unlike all others he's come across, such a gift is not a blessing at all; it is damnation, through and through. It's yet another life he holds in his hands, another death by his teeth.

Tiredly, even though his limbs never fatigue, he lowers himself to sit on the edge of the barren cliff, his legs dangling in the air, shoulders slouching against this mountain of new weight. For some reason, her death weighs more than the others. Perhaps because hers is as inevitable as the rise of the sun in east.

"Father, have I not done enough?" he whispers, looking down into the black abyss. "You taunt me, knowing that I will fail. You make me Job. You place this girl in my path, condemning her and despising me. Why? What purpose is there in this?"

There is no response, only the lamenting howl of a wild animal in the distance.

Edward sighs and swallows against the burn that refuses to quench. When he lifts his head again and stares into the heavens, still waiting for his answer, instead of seeing God's nightly blanket, Edward sees _her. _

Drawn in the sky, as clearly as if she were right there in front of him, he gazes into dark yet somehow bright eyes, churning with thoughts that elude him. That same smile that graced her lips from across the room is affixed to her face, as if she holds back the secrets of the universe.

For Edward, she may as well. Flicking a handful of snow into the wind, he ponders the utter silence of her mind. A first in his entire immortal existence. When he murmurs her name, a soft, caressing, _"Bella,"_ testing it on his tongue, something else is there, too. There's that faint tug in the heart of his chest, a hollow thump of recognition that he doesn't comprehend any more than the rest.

**~.~.~**

"Edward?"

The worry in the elder priest's voice rattles him even through the line. Despite his years in the presence of humans, Edward is not accustomed to the kind of connection that Carlisle offers – friendship, leadership, a firm hand in gale force winds. It's unsettling in so many ways that this mortal man has taken him under his wing, but more so that he fails to sense the inherent danger and wrongness in the pale _inhuman_ predator disguised in black.

"Father Carlisle, I apologize," Edward answers, contrition evident in his tone. "It wasn't my intent to cause you concern. I was… called away."

"Where are you, son? It's been three days. We were worried. What happened?"

Edward doesn't tell Carlisle that the reason he chose not to call was because he couldn't. Cell phone towers only exist where _people_ are.

"North, Father. I had to take a trip up into Canada. A former parishioner called. It was… an emergency. He needed guidance."

"I see." An unexplainable kindness is present when Carlisle quietly asks, "Then all is well?"

Edward gazes across the empty platform, stopping after he watches the schedule screen blink several times. There is an uncomfortable lethargy in his motions, a resignation perhaps. He's uncertain what drew him here; he only knows that three days in the wilderness did nothing to assuage the demons within. They still clamor.

"No, not really," Edward finally returns.

They begin speaking around the topic, pretending as though there is some poor soul who teeters on the brink of Hell and who called Edward away in the dark of the night. Carlisle is old enough to know lies when he hears them, yet he is compassionate enough to recognize suffering, too.

"A crisis of faith?"

Edward fingers the trim of his jacket, now damp from the snow and turned gray from the hours outdoors. There is a long, jagged slash up the right side from the fang of a bobcat.

"Perhaps," he confesses, recalling his own anguished, unanswered cries.

"You should tell him that there is a purpose in all things. That God would not place a burden on his shoulders that cannot be borne."

A gaggle of day-worn businessmen and travelers appear at the far end of the platform, and on the distant screen, the time blinks. Twenty minutes until the next departure.

"It's not that easy, Father."

"Nothing is easy, son. That is why we rely on Him."

Edward frowns. "Does He listen to you?"

Carlisle chuckles, and Edward knows that were he there, sitting beside the elderly priest in the warm parlor of the old rectory, familiar ice-blue eyes would be smiling in amusement. "Always."

"Does He answer you?"

The laughter cuts away and far more seriously, Carlisle speaks what Edward most wants to know. "Often enough. Although it's never in the way that I expect."

There is a deep silence through the line, even as echoes of human minds and voices begin to roar in the vastness of the station. Ten minutes blink and Edward fingers the slip of paper in his hand, vacillating.

Softer, the old priest implores, "Come back to Chicago, Edward. Come _home_. Have faith in Him and in yourself."

**~.~.~**

For exactly five days, Edward manages to avoid both his heaven and his Hell. Under the guise of deep study, he spends the daylight hours cloistered inside the safety of his small room, staring at the stone walls and venturing out only when propriety demands it. In other words, when Carlisle taps on his door and threatens to drag him out. Fearful and burning so brightly that he swears that his throat is nothing more than ash, he breathes rarely and only when he's absolutely certain that she is nowhere nearby.

At night – every night – he hunts, pulling down whatever four-legged creature he can find to douse the flames.

Edward is certain that this new existence is some kind of damnation from God because he is consumed with thoughts of this girl, both of the bloodshed he imagines and of the other unexplainable reactions. For the thousandth time, he wonders why he chose to return to this place.

Maybe, he reasons, it is because Carlisle is right; this is home, or the closest thing he has to it, and some part of his human self clings to it. Or maybe it's because the elderly priest and the young boy with black hair have somehow inched their way beneath the granite of his skin. Or perhaps, more likely, it is something else altogether, something that remains nameless and undiscovered.

On the sixth evening, Edward wanders into the empty church, hands in his pockets, a singular, dark and pale shadow under the dim lights. When the overhead bells clang the hour, he closes his eyes, and for the first time in what feels like forever, he inhales.

Incense. The sweetness of heated wax. The fine layer of dust that the church's aging janitor can no longer reach.

And for a moment, breathing these familiar, soothing scents, he feels something resembling peace. So much so that the appearance of a slow and steady jump of a heartbeat in his ears startles him. He's too stunned and suddenly fearful to even comprehend how or why he missed that he was not alone.

Edward's head jerks up and his eyes fall on a small, folded figure. Far ahead, _she_ sits on the very front pew_._ She's looking up to the ceiling with her arms tightly hugging her chest. Gone is the smile and the churning eyes. Now, diminutive against the immensity of the vacant nave, she looks lost and so very fragile.

Despite the image, like the demon he truly is, Edward's throat violently seizes and his eyes shade to night, as vivid, gory scenes play in his mind. An anticipatory shudder runs down his spine, and he swears that he can feel the velvety heat of her blood splattering against his face. For that brief second, Edward the man is again gone and the monster deep inside claws forth, petitioning his feet forward.

Before his heel hits stone, however, he stops. For a lone soft sob, so loud to his perfect ears, breaks the silence, instantly quieting the beast and stilling all motion.

That sound, unexpectedly spilling from her lips, does something to him. Centered in his chest, the tug he's felt ever since he saw this girl suddenly becomes a shared ache. It _hurts_, a sensation that Edward hasn't felt since his last mortal hours.

Lucidity returns, forcing his lungs to seal. And Edward is left torn, half of him still on fire and beseeching for the kill, the other half strangely silent.

So he does nothing. He moves neither to her nor away, instead remaining frozen in the center of the aisle, one hand clasped around a well-worn rosary in his pocket. His lips move silently, praying that he will not kill her, that he will not lay her out on the very pew on which she sits and drink every drop of her too-precious blood.

Still _hurting_, Edward merely watches her quiet sadness, incapable of looking away, mesmerized. It's that same sense of being paralyzed while burning at the stake that he felt that first night in the shelter. Her head is bowed, her hair falling down around her face like a dark curtain, and he can hear the soft hitches in her breathing. Were he to test the air, Edward knows that he would taste the bitter salt of fallen tears.

When he probes, searching for some word or at least some indication of thought, Edward realizes that Bella's mind is as silent as it was before, so he is left without his talent, wondering and bewildered by her cries. Even as fire chars him from the inside, some other instinct makes Edward's fingers inexplicably twitch, wanting to wipe away her sorrow, whatever its cause. He cannot, he knows. Yet still, for reasons he cannot begin to explain, departing and ceasing his distant vigil is an even more _uncomfortable_ option.

An hour later, when Bella rises and turns to leave, her eyes meet his staring ones and widen in surprise.

The world stops turning.

.

.


	4. Tuba mirum

**IV. Tuba mirum (spargens sonum)**

* * *

><p>Cautiously, she approaches.<p>

Louder than those that chime in the tower above, alarm bells clang in Edward's mind, yet his feet refuse to move. He needs to run. _Now_. The instant pool of poison in his mouth and the blasting fire in his throat dictate as much.

"I'm sorry… Father," Bella murmurs, the softness of her voice cutting through the harsh silence. Inexplicably, she stares at the white square at the base of his throat rather than his face. "I'm probably… I'm probably not supposed to be here. The door was unlocked… and time just… got away from me."

Echoing in Edward's mind, her heart hammers a sharp staccato, a disjointed, mesmerizing rhythm that somehow – _strangely_ – battles back both his urge to flee as well as the acid on his tongue. Instead of inciting the demon, it's an ice cold bath.

Distracted from his internal war, Edward can't help but notice that her arms still cross her chest and wind tightly around her shoulders. On her cheeks, pale and smoothest cream, he sees the faint gray stains of her quiet grief, and he despises them. Softly, in his most gentle voice, Edward whispers, "Why do you cry so?"

Bella ducks and flushes, a reaction he cannot comprehend without the mental context. "I'm fine," she answers, nervously glancing around. "It was just… it's a little overwhelming in here…"

Edward is bemused by her answer because _here_ is home, the closest thing to solace that he's ever known. He says nothing, but instead tilts his head in study, watching the way her lips part and purse. He should leave, he tells himself again, yet the mysterious compulsion to remain is too strong.

As if in shame, her dark eyes look down and Bella talks to the stone beneath her feet. "My parents died last year in a car wreck. Today was… Well, today was the anniversary…I wasn't sure what I was supposed to do today. They don't tell you that kind of thing. So I just… came here. It seemed like a good idea at the time." She takes a deep breath. "I don't know why I'm telling you this."

"You're alone?" The slowly drawn question hangs in the air. Somehow both know that the implication behind it has everything and nothing to do with her current physical status.

Eyes fathomless, glinting in the candlelight, Bella stares up at him. In her gaze, Edward sees the vastness of the cathedral reflected back at him, a play of flickering yellow light and dark, sliding shadow.

"I just moved here. I don't know anyone." She hesitates, as if considering the truth of her own words. "But yes. To answer your question, I am… Alone… I have been for a long time. Since before they died, really."

Edward nods slowly and solemnly; solitude and all its ins and outs is something in which he's well-versed. "I'm sorry," is all he says, quietly too, because he knows that no other words suffice.

Her brows fold sharply. "You're really a priest?"

Bella's question is sudden, an unexpected second plunge into an ice-cold lake. Startled, Edward mutely watches as her face transforms – warms – and it's as though a fog lifts before his very eyes, carrying with it that hour of sorrow. In its place, Edward detects an unforeseen hint of wonder.

He smiles without thinking because maybe, just maybe, he also senses a little bit of teasing.

Even without her mental voice, Edward knows the whys and wherefores of this particular query. He's heard it countless times and answered it just as many. Although this time, for some reason he cannot grasp, the hollowness inside him seems to echo his words, and he feels a ghost of the _hurt_ he felt before.

"Yes, I am… I have been… for a while."

"You don't even look twenty," she mumbles, looking away, stealing Edward's only window into her thoughts.

"I'm… a bit older than that," he hedges.

Brows furrowed again, she blurts, "It's the Holy Water, isn't it?"

Her abrupt irreverence knocks his guard to its knees, and Edward laughs despite himself and the situation. In doing so, however, he's forced to sip a fresh breath of air. It's like knives carving down his esophagus and Edward's grip tightens around the back of the nearest pew. The century-old wood groans beneath his struggling restraint.

"Shit– no, sorry," Bella stammers, twisting her hands before shoving them inside her pockets. "I shouldn't have said that. Or that. God, I say stupid things when I'm nervous."

Disarmed and more than slightly amused by the wide-eyed, horrified expression she wears, Edward wants to laugh again, this time harder. But inside, he's still reeling from the fiery pain coursing down his throat and blooming within his chest. "You don't need to tip toe around me," he manages, swallowing back molten lava. "I've heard… worse. I promise."

"Yeah, right."

As if to test every bit of his control, her skin blazes bright pink with a rush of blood and embarrassment. Again, his lungs constrict, clamping down and holding onto his breath as tightly as his fist squeezes the rosary in his pocket. Even so, Edward swears that he can taste her, and silently, he curses both God and himself.

"No, really," Edward coughs. "You're just fine. More than fine."

"I don't even know your name."

Flash-frozen, he stills – the room stills – for the breadth of a single heartbeat.

It's like he can't find stable ground anywhere close to this human woman. He's never felt so out of control, so untethered. Regardless, his response is automatic and it falls by the second hammer of her heart, spoken in an almost whisper. "Edward. I'm Edward."

"Father Edward?" Bella throws him a tentative smile, her eyes again dropping to the base of his throat. He can only stare. Something about the way her lips curve around his name makes him momentarily forget the allure of the blood just beneath her skin. He wants to hear her say it again.

"Sure…" he murmurs.

But then Edward pauses because for the first time in all his decades in black, that title chafes.

His lips move again without permission and he barely hears his own words. "Or just… Edward if you'd prefer. Masen. That's my last name."

Bella eyes him strangely – an expression he cannot read at all – before quietly replying in kind. "I'm Bella Swan."

One corner of his mouth pulls up into a pained but sincere half-smile. "Pleased to meet you, Bella Swan."

After a moment of silent and not altogether uncomfortable mutual study, they begin the walk back up the aisle toward the vestibule. Her steps are measured and slow, as though she's reluctant to leave, and Edward can't help but notice the tightening of that little knot that's formed where his heart once rested. Like everything that has happened to him since her appearance, its existence is an enigma. A painful one, but one that makes him feel somehow more human. While his throat scratches and smolders in her presence and while the animal inside bares his venom-slick teeth, he finds himself wishing for just a few more minutes. As wrong and utterly dangerous as it is – for both her and for him – just a few more minutes.

Before passing through the door and into the dark night, Bella stops and glances up at him in question. "Am I supposed to cross myself as I leave?" she whispers, nervously fingering the frayed strap of a bag slung over her shoulder. "Sorry. I'm not really Catholic. I don't know what I should do."

Jarred, Edward smiles again, his shoulders silently shaking, and he gazes at the glimmering altar. "Don't worry about it. He won't mind."

**~.~.~**

It's raining outside and full-blown autumn rides the steady wind coming off the lake. A miserable night, the temperature hovers just above freezing.

Of course, the frigid weather is meaningless to Edward, not even a vague irritation to his own frozen form, but he knows that for the downtrodden and most vulnerable, tonight is Hell on earth, though only a taste of what will come in the nearing months.

Not surprising, the shelter and kitchen are full tonight, each bed taken, every table filled.

When he pushes open the door, risking a so-small sip of air, a hundred scents assault his nostrils. At once, mingled in with the humid aroma of boiling stew, Edward tastes days-old sweat, cheap whiskey, and worse, so many bitter poisons. But above all, overpowering all else and drawing every bit of his focus and concentration, the strongest scent is _her_ and her damnable blood. Even though he can't see her yet, he knows Bella is here.

The more significant question is, why is he?

Edward doesn't know why, only that once he began walking, his feet pulled him here.

Lingering near the wall, his honey-colored gaze anxiously scans the room, taking in each man, each woman, and each child. Their faces are worn and thin – so very tired – and most show age beyond actual years. So many here are sick – in body, in mind, and most of all, in spirit. It's a sad, depressing scene, although Edward has certainly seen worse.

By most accounts, he's seen _the_ worst.

Blankly staring at rheumy eyes and sunken cheeks, his mind wends back, circling through more than sixty years. With too-perfect clarity – another _gift_ of his kind – Edward remembers _everything_.

Invisible dust suddenly pelts his granite skin, and in unconscious response, his lips begin to move, murmuring silent prayers and pleas – those same plaintive ones from years ago. In his ears, desperate cries in a half dozen languages scream, and there's the horrific _rat-tat-tat_ of gunfire all around.

For a split second, Edward is lost in the middle of the crowded shelter. He drowns in the memories that refuse to fade, reliving the stench and sting of raining ash, of hellfire and brimstone. The day his green Willys Jeep passed through the gates of Birkenau. The day, new to the cloth and collar, he prayed over so many dying and dead. The day, in a fit of despair, he shattered the vow to God and himself that he swore he'd never break.

A faint click from across the room and the swing of a kitchen door jerks Edward's attention, pulling his eyes up. Oblivious to his presence, _she_ appears, traipsing through the door, somehow banishing all of those images away. In their place, of course, her own brand of fire returns, consuming him from the inside out. Instinctively, against his will, his predator hands curl into hunting talons as that demon within taunts him to breathe.

As soon as his nails bite into his flesh, however, in some kind of momentary reprieve from God, the flash of pain shoves him away from the dangerous edge, and suddenly, it's as though he's come loose from his bindings, like he's being pulled and pushed by an unseen, gentle current. As he watches Bella flit from table to table, delivering her small baskets of bread, both the fire and the rest of the room slowly recede. There's a smile affixed to her delicate face that draws his eyes. It's a soft, graceful smile, too, one that doesn't match the nervous, irreverent woman he met in the nave. It's impossible to look away.

"Edward!"

Sluggishly and reluctantly, Edward turns slightly to his left, only to find an amused older man, as always, dressed like him in all black.

Forcing a smile, he politely dips his head. "Father Carlisle."

"Always so formal," the aging priest chuckles, extending his withered hand in greeting. "We're in the twenty-first century now. You know that, right?"

"Yes, I'm aware of the year," Edward replies, smiling more broadly at the joke only he knows.

Carlisle merely shakes head before eyeing him in speculation. "I didn't expect to see you around here after covering Confession this afternoon. You aren't assigned to shelter duty…"

"I'm…"

"Just checking on Seth?" Carlisle offers, although his thoughts show someone else altogether.

To Edward's wonder, Carlisle's mind holds no chastisement or accusation of impropriety. Instead, there's only concern and a stubborn wish for peace for the younger man, however that may come. Once more, Edward is left astounded by this man's capacity for friendship and compassion, and he abruptly feels compelled to confess the greatest lie of all.

"Of course," Edward answers, swallowing. Nevertheless, his eyes betray him and unwittingly follow the path of the girl who, through no fault but God's vengeance and despite his own better reasoning, has become the current focal point of his existence.

"Jake says that boy's a wonder in the kitchen," Carlisle continues.

"I knew he would be." Edward nods. "I've never seen a kinder soul."

Almost slyly, the older priest winks and adds, "Says Bella's a big help, too."

Without warning, as if conjured, filtering through the cinderblock wall, their cook's rambling thoughts flash through Edward's mind. He sees blurry, distinctly _human_ images of their newest server. For some unknown reason, it's… _exasperating_ how little the man sees, how imperfect his mind's eye can be. More disquieting, the cook also envisions her with fewer clothes.

Edward's fists again clench tightly by his sides, squeezing until his knuckles crack. Before he can see more, or more importantly, grasp the whys of his reaction, he's instantly floored when Carlisle speaks again.

"I talked to Bella this afternoon. She said that she ran into you at the church the other night. Said that you two talked for a while."

It's a rare occasion that Edward's talent is thwarted, but the thought and words seemingly came from nowhere, and now he is left stunned and speechless. Jacob the cook, as well as the inferno that seems to always engulf his throat, is temporarily forgotten. It's one of the few times since he arrived that his careful façade slips, and in a gesture far more human than he is, Edward gapes.

The moment Carlisle sees Edward's expression – blatant surprise and something buried deep and akin to remorse – he laughs. It's a full-on belly laugh, complete with tears at the corners of his crinkly eyes.

"I knew it," he wheezes, his amusement _almost_ masking the sharp needle of concern threading through the old man's awareness.

Everything Edward knows seems to be crumbling beneath him. It's as though he's in freefall, as though his once steady and predictable existence is now nothing more than tumult and chaos. His face drops and his shoulders fold. A whispered plea tumbles out of his mouth before he can stop it. "Father, what do I do?"

.

.


	5. Rex tremendae

**V. Rex tremendae majestatis**

* * *

><p><em>"Father, what do I do?"<em>

The words resonate in the crowded room.

Carlisle's quaking shoulders still. Hearing such plaintive desperation in the young priest's plea, his features soften into an expression he has worn many, many times.

"Are you asking Him or me?"

Edward's gaze remains fastened to the cream-colored tile beneath his feet. There is a spider-web of microscopic cracks and jagged fissures – stress lines that only his eyes can see. For a moment, he simply stares, memorizing the misshapen pattern.

"I don't know," he finally whispers.

With a weary sigh, the older man rakes a gnarled hand through corn silk hair. The toe of a shiny black oxford taps once against the tile, hesitates, and then taps again.

While his gestures are nervous, indicative of so many unvoiced words, the priest's mind betrays little; as always, Carlisle's thoughts venture only to realms of compassion and concern. Unlike most, he never asks, or assumes, or worse, condemns.

However much he wishes it otherwise, Edward cannot explain the real reasons for his worry and fret, or that those reasons run far deeper than human failures and broken vows. He can't tell Carlisle that because of who he is – because of _what_ he is – it's Bella's life and soul that hang in the balance, not his.

Those of his kind are not granted such gifts anyway.

Regardless, it is Bella who is in mortal danger. For she is the one who calls to him with the strength of a thousand. She is the one whom his demons clamor to taste and to drain. He is simply left knowing that if he falters – that if he fails to contain his monster– her death will, for reasons he still cannot fully comprehend, weigh upon his shoulders for all time. Hers will be unbearable, the sin that will send him begging for oblivion.

Yet in the same breath, he's no better than the moth captivated by the flame and he can't seem to force himself to do what he knows he must to save them both – to _leave, _and this time for good.

A palm gently cups Edward's shoulder, and oh-so-pleasant warmth soaks through his clothing and skin. Bony fingers grasp and squeeze, and with unwavering kindness and calm, Carlisle softly says, "What you are experiencing is nothing new, son. We are all tested in various ways."

"What if I fail?" Edward's eyes close and he dares to draw in a shaky breath. He might as well be inhaling fire. It's a fitting punishment and reminder.

"Trust yourself, Edward. You're stronger than you think. You will do the right thing."

About the time he opens his mouth to disagree, the front door slams open, ushering in a blast of frigid air. Haloed against the dark outside, a middle-aged man with dingy blonde hair and steel gray eyes appears. He's dirty and disheveled and dressed in ill-fitting army fatigues. But it's not his appearance that is troubling, however; it's the churning mania of his mind that immediately puts Edward on edge.

His mind is _different_ than those around. Sicker. Sharper. Flashing between past and present. The thoughts are twisted and mangled into something that even Edward cannot discern.

"Who is that? Edward quietly asks, his eyes never leaving this new arrival. He watches as the man glances around, almost frantically, and then speeds his way to an open spot at a table near the opposite wall. When his chair screeches against the floor, those nearest flinch and look away.

Carlisle's lips mash and turn down. "That's Jimmy. I don't know his last name. But he's here every winter. Has been for the last five years."

"He's…" Edward stalls, unsure how to explain what he knows.

"A very unfortunate individual… but usually harmless."

Edward instantly stills and his eyes unconsciously flit across the room to Bella. "Usually?"

"Sometimes he's worse than others. I believe that at some point he was in Iraq or Afghanistan. At least that's what some of the others say. His mind just isn't right." Carlisle pauses and shakes his head. "His sister, or maybe it was his wife – pretty red-headed woman – came by once, trying to take him home, but he just wouldn't go. He's…"

In some kind of strange, instinctual response, every muscle in Edward's body is taut, coiled as if ready to strike. "Has he hurt anyone?"

A new kind of fear erupts in the pit of his stomach when Carlisle doesn't answer.

**~.~.~**

"Do you mind closing up?"

Head tilted and with a furrowed brow, Edward studies the older priest. It's only been a handful of hours of kitchen duty, but the man appears tired, more haggard and worn than he did before. Beneath Carlisle's eyes are the faint beginnings of bruises – gray smudges beneath translucent white – and when he speaks, there's weariness that Edward doesn't recall ever hearing. The normal thump of his heart is slower, too, and Edward cannot help but feel a pang of concern.

"Are you unwell, Father?" he softly asks.

Carlisle's eyes light up and he smiles a familiar smile. "I'm just old, Edward." He chuckles as he pushes an errant chair under a table. "You'll understand one day."

Hearing what will never be, Edward's shoulders slump yet his answering grin falters not once. "I'm sure. Of course, I'll lock up. Go on home." Surveying the now near-empty room, he nods. "Just a few stragglers."

Before Carlisle turns to leave, he eyes Edward closely, as if looking for cracks in a stone façade. "If you need anything – someone to talk to about whatever it is that has you so rattled – I want you to know that whatever secrets you have are safe with me. I'm not here to judge and my door is always open."

A moment passes in which Edward can only stare, wanting to believe this man so much, wanting to finally confess what he knows he must not. Swallowing, Edward mimics Carlisle's actions from before and lightly rests his hand upon the other man's shoulder. "You are a very good man, Carlisle Cullen, more so than all I've encountered."

He knows that his words and demeanor are far older – far more solemn – than those of men his physical age. And in the long second that follows, as honey-colored eyes meet pale blue, in Carlisle's thoughts, Edward detects a faint hint of recognition – the knowledge that the young priest before him is not exactly as he seems. Despite the danger, however, Edward doesn't pull away, and something passes between the two men in black, some kind of wordless understanding.

"Good night, son. Remember what I told you before?"

Not following, Edward's brows climb in question. "Which time?"

With a wide-open smile, Carlisle tsks in teasing, but then more seriously, he adds, "There is purpose in all things, even when we cannot see it. Trust Him. And yourself."

It takes no more than thirty minutes for the dining room to clear. As Edward studies the space, it's strange and discomfiting how empty it now seems, so stark and white, so devoid of life. Were it not for the last two remaining heartbeats in the kitchen, it would be utterly silent.

As if on cue, one of those heartbeats disappears and then the other one begins to soar. Before he has a chance to hold his breath in preparation, Bella peeks out from around the kitchen door. From across the room, her eyes are wide, as if processing the exact same scene.

"Is everybody gone?" she calls. "Jake just left and I think the kitchen's done."

Her voice is quiet, but it rings so loudly in Edward's ears. While he listened to her all night – laughing and making everyone around her smile – that she now addresses him makes something thump inside his empty chest.

"I believe so," he answers back. "It's late. I wish you'd left sooner."

Slowly, Bella crosses the room, only stopping when she's less than an arm's length away. For a moment, the surge of fragrance that envelops the space around them nearly knocks him to his knees. And even when he closes off his lungs, that mesmerizing _rush-rush_ of blood flowing through her veins is almost more than he can stand.

"Are you okay?"

It's only now that Edward realizes that his eyes are closed. When he opens them, she's studying him – staring at him in such ways that were he human, would make him blush. She still glances to his collar, but there is a familiarity there in her appraisal that makes that tug come to life. Clearing his flaming throat, he manages, "Yes, just… a little tired."

"Tell me about it." Bella's nose scrunches, and despite the charring going on inside his hollow frame, he's instantly fascinated. For the hundredth time tonight alone, Edward reminds himself of what he _should_ do, yet as if to smite him, his feet refuse to obey better reasoning.

It's as if he's a satellite, held in orbit by a gravity he didn't know to exist.

"The shift was too long for you?" he softly ventures. Edward knows without asking that she's been here more than seven hours, and most of those were on her feet. She should be exhausted, and the thought that she is troubles him far more than it should.

"No, not really," Bella hedges, but then she yawns and laughs. "Okay, maybe. I haven't waited tables since high school. It's hard!"

It's impossible to not smile at the way she speaks with her hands and the way her eyes flicker to and fro. While her innermost thoughts still elude him, Edward realizes that Bella gives away far more than he initially believed.

"You're going home now?" It's as much a question as a suggestion.

"Yeah. It shouldn't take that long." Bella stops and waves toward the western side of the building. "I only live ten or so blocks."

Edward freezes. The sinking feeling that left with Jimmy's eventual departure returns in full force, and suddenly every muscle he has aches to lash out and destroy. "You didn't drive?"

"No." Bella frowns and her ponytail whips back and forth, sending a new wave of succulent perfume across his face. It's excruciating, intense and concentrated, but inexplicably, that other anxiety temporarily outweighs the fire. "It's not that cold yet," she goes on. "And I like the walk. It's good for you, you know? And it's the only time the city is even remotely quiet."

"I can't allow that," Edward counters, more forcefully than is polite or appropriate. While she doesn't seem to acknowledge what lurks in these dark streets, _he_ does.

"What? Me walking?"

"You walking… alone… out there at night. It's not… safe," he hears himself haltingly reply. Shoving his hands behind him to hide the shaking stretch of tendons, he murmurs, "Let me call you a cab. Please?"

"God, no!" Bella laughs and her eyes sparkle in undisguised amusement. It's as if she can't see the caged animal pacing in front of her. "Now those are creepy."

"Creepy?" His lips twitch, instantly recalling the blurted, irreverent words from that night in the nave.

"Edward, have you ridden in a cab lately? One this late at night?"

That she chooses to call him by his given name startles him. But the more Edward considers the notion of this fragile human girl alone on the streets, the more agitated he becomes. He can't explain this reaction any more than he can explain anything else related to this woman, but Edward can't deny that what he feels is fear – of her, for her, and everything else in between.

"Then I'll walk with you."

.

.


	6. Recordare, Jesu pie

**VI. Recordare, Jesu pie**

* * *

><p>The old bronze clock, hung high on the distant building, chimes midnight – far, far too late for the respectable to be out on the streets in this part of town. Yet despite the frigid air, the distant sirens, and the murky darkness all around, their walk is slow and measured, closer to that of a leisurely stroll than anything else.<p>

As they make the first left, Edward sees that Bella knows her route well, following it and leading without pause or hesitation. He quickly grasps that for her, this is a well-worn path, and it's alarming how seldom she glances around – how she doesn't seem to notice those that loiter in the dark mouths of the alleyways nearby. Her soft features show no signs of fear or of apprehension, and in an abrupt second of clarity, from the small, contented smile affixed to Bella's face, Edward recognizes that his earlier suspicions were frighteningly correct: where he fears everything, she fears _nothing_.

Of course, at least tonight, there is no threat of what hides in the shadows they pass. After all, the far greater danger walks right beside her.

"How long have you been at St. Mark's?" she asks, as they patiently wait for a signal to turn.

Playfully almost, she puffs a breath of hot steam, grinning as she watches the plume rise and swirl up into the cold night. With bright, smiling eyes, she puffs again, only this time, her lips tighten and purse, contorting and reshaping her cloud of steam.

For Edward, it's an instant of innocent beauty and child-like wonder, an unveiled glimpse into who she is. He's unsure exactly why, but she's utterly captivating, and as so often occurs around this woman, something bittersweet and almost forgotten echoes inside him.

Still waiting for him to respond, Bella glances over and he's caught watching her breath, too. Lifting one brow almost as if in expectation, she eyes him curiously, and it takes Edward a moment to realize his slip.

He's not breathing at all, and she can tell.

Hiding his mouth behind the collar of his coat, Edward shrugs and says what he always does. "Not too long. I moved here in the spring."

"Where were you before?"

"Notre Dame," is his automatic response.

She blinks and whips her head around, clearly taken aback by his answer. "Really?"

"Yes, really," he nods, smiling. This time it's his brows that lift in challenge. "Why does that surprise you?"

Fingering the buttons on her coat, she huffs, "I don't know! It just does, I guess."

"What? Did you think I was born with this collar?" Tapping the square of white at the base of his throat, Edward grins even wider and laughs at the confusion she still wears. It's been such a long time since he's teased anyone, and it's startling how _good_ it feels – how _human_ he feels. "We do go to school, you know. Quite a lot of it, really. It's kind of a requirement."

_These days, _he silently adds. His first round in seminary took half the time.

"I never really thought about that," Bella murmurs, shaking her head as she pushes her hands deep inside her pockets.

"I'm just teasing you, you know," he answers softly. Looking high above, his eyes follow the path of a passing plane. The light on its wings blink bright red, flickering on and off, almost in time to the beat of her heart. "Most people don't think about it."

When the signal finally turns, they step off the curb in unison. As they walk, Bella's expression slowly morphs into something else – another one of those faces he has no hope of deciphering. It's almost _contemplative_, and she stares at him with some kind of purpose – as though he's some riddle to unravel.

"What?" he asks, absorbed by the subtle changes he sees in her face.

"You just… never mind." Bella stops with a grimace. It's dark out, with only a handful of dim streetlights overhead, but his eyes easily catch the faint dusting of pink on her cheeks. As if in answer to his unspoken prayers, for once, his demons are silent, strangely ignoring the tantalizing pool of blood just beneath the thin veil of her skin. Instead, he merely wants to know why she blushes so.

Softer, more gently, he presses. "No. What is it?"

Quietly, looking away, down, and everywhere but directly at him, Bella whispers, "You just don't look like any priest I've ever seen." Their eyes meet for less than a second. "I can't explain it."

Edward doesn't know how to answer because Bella is far more right than she can ever guess. But in her voice, he detects a slight quiver, something that has nothing to do with the chill in the air, and it reminds him all too well of the hour of anguish he witnessed that night in the nave. It speaks of _longing_.

A sudden sharp and overwhelming urge to _touch_ and to comfort nearly brings him to his knees.

With a sigh, oblivious to the current turmoil inside him, Bella reaches up to brush a stray strand of hair out of her eyes. She smiles a forced, shy smile that makes that urge rise and crest again.

"Anyway." The forced smile widens. "Where were we? So… Chicago?"

Startled by the abrupt change, both in topic and in levity, Edward clears his throat to buy some time. When he exhales, he sucks back in a short breath of frigid air. It's painful enough to make him wince, like swallowing shards of broken glass, but at least out here, he notes, the stench of the city dilutes the perfect fragrance of her blood. At least out here, he can breathe and remain sane.

"What about it?" he finally replies, still turning her earlier words and tone around in his head.

Bella laughs. "Why did you come here? Why not somewhere else?"

"I was born here," Edward hears himself saying. It's perplexing and terrifying how desperately he wants to answer her questions. With the truth. The _real_ truth. How much he would like to be _known_. While he cannot divulge some things – all of the important things – Edward finds himself offering everything he possibly can. "Chicago is home, I suppose. As much as I have one."

They finally stop outside a ten-story brick and mortar building from a bygone era, yet Bella makes no move to go inside. "You have family near?"

"No." Edward shakes his head. "My parents died when I was younger and I never had any siblings."

Bella's features pinch and fold. "I'm so sorry," she whispers, holding a balled fist to her chest.

"It's all right," he murmurs, studying the century-old architecture and the few squares of pale yellow that light up the façade. He wonders if he passed by this place in another life, if he once stood here on this very spot. "It was a long time ago, Bella. I barely remember. They were very sick. I was happy that they no longer suffered."

"You must have been so lonely."

Something unexpected and hot envelops his hand. She is so incredibly _warm_ that it's almost as if he's been lit ablaze. Yet her skin is soft – so very, very_ soft – _that he can't bring himself to immediately pull away, never mind the terrifying risk_._ When Bella squeezes, his lungs seize as a galloping heartbeat resonates from her hand into his, climbing up through his arm and filling his hollow chest with its rhythmic hammer.

For the first time since the day Edward awoke to crimson eyes and to the reek of blood and death, there's the cadence of a pulse in his long-dead veins.

**~.~.~**

Three days pass, with just as many late night strolls.

For reasons that both confound him and make him smile, Bella refuses to drive or to take a taxi home from the shelter each night. As such, because he simply can't tolerate the idea of her alone at night _out there_, Edward's role of confessor and counselor now extends to that of unlikely nighttime escort.

"You really don't have to walk me home," she huffs, crinkling her nose. "I'm not seven."

No, she's twenty-three, he learned.

"Of course not," Edward returns, shrugging on a black woolen coat anyway. Like all his outerwear, it's an unnecessary prop, but long years have taught him that people tend to pay close attention to those who do not adhere to normalcy. And Bella, despite her careless walks alone, can be exceptionally observant when she wants to be. Two nights of dodging questions have indicated as much.

"Perhaps I simply like the night air." Opening the metal door for her to exit, he adds, "Plus, it's my turn, wouldn't you say?"

"For?" Bella asks, frowning as she struggles with a pair of bright-colored woven mittens. It's even colder tonight than before, and judging by the tacky dampness in the air, snow is on its way.

Without thinking at all, in reaction to some kind of long-lost instinct, Edward reaches over and steadies the thick fabric. He doesn't realize how close he is until he feels the light brush of warm skin against his fingertips.

"The Inquisition," he replies, quickly pulling away and faking a cough. When he turns back, she's staring at him, waiting for explanation, and despite the fear of broken boundaries, he can't help but smile. "That's kind of _my _area, after all."

"What are you talking about?" she laughs. And when she laughs, it's with her entire face.

"Questions, Ms. Swan. It's my turn."

As they walk the now familiar path to her home, Edward recognizes that he's toeing close to a line.

In every way.

While the night air and exposure have slowly dampened the raging bloodlust, every moment she is in his presence is an exercise in caution and risk. One misstep – one second where he forgets to rein himself in – could be her last. And the more time he spends with her, the more excruciating that notion becomes. For the sake of self-preservation, it's something he simply cannot allow.

But it's more than that, too.

Those bindings that he willfully took upon himself so many years ago now do more than chafe; they bite. And every time Edward looks too long or finds himself sinking into this casual new companionship, a _different_ kind of guilt weighs heavily. One that he can't fully explain or articulate.

"Why Chicago for you?" he finally asks, shoving aside his mental grief. He can study that later, he argues. It's not as though he lacks the time.

Bella shrugs. "I just wanted something different, I suppose."

"Different? How so?"

She flips her hair behind her ear in nervous habit, as if she's unused to speaking about herself in such ways. "Yeah, from Washington. That's–" She pauses. "That's where I'm from, originally. Where my parents lived before they died."

He doesn't press or even speak, instead allowing her the space and time to answer as she chooses.

After a moment, she goes on, "It's too quiet there. Too many trees. Too many people who know me. I felt like I was suffocating."

Still not speaking, he glances down to find her looking back up at him, her eyes dark and churning, almost as if she were in search of absolution.

"I understand," is all he says. And he does, more than anything.

Nodding as if that were enough, she takes a deep breath. "I was finishing up at UW when mom and dad died. I had enough credits to graduate, so I took early graduation and moved back to Forks – that's where they lived. I don't know. I didn't have a lot of close friends in school and really no family then. When I got home, there were all of these people I didn't really know stopping by, bringing food, and wanting to talk to me. They just wouldn't leave me alone. I just needed… to get away. That's awful, isn't it? They were just trying to help."

"No, it's not awful. Not at all."

Her smile is pained, given away by the way her arms wrap around her chest and grip her shoulders. "You're probably supposed to say that."

One corner of Edward's mouth pulls up. "Probably. Nonetheless, it's true. There's nothing awful about you."

Some of the tension releases from her muscles. He can see it, the way Bella's shoulders slump beneath the heft of her coat, almost in relief, and he wants to say the same words over and over until all of her distress is gone.

"So one day," Bella starts again. "I was just randomly talking to this girl in the coffee shop, and she said 'Why not move?' She said, 'Go get lost in some big city and just live.' I had no idea where to go. It wasn't like I'd done any real traveling as a kid. She suggested Chicago. So… here I am."

She laughs then. "I didn't really know what to do once I got here. I didn't know anyone. The city is huge and maybe a little intimidating. But then one day, I was just walking around and saw your church. Father Carlisle found me there, you know, like you did the other night, and I just kind of…"

"Stayed," he whispers.

"Yeah, I guess so." Her lips again turn down. "Some of the people that come to the shelter are so… sad. It's so hard to watch them walk out the door, knowing where they are going."

"Why do you continue to come if…"

When Bella looks up at him again, there's the shine of vulnerability in her eyes, and once more, he's left aching on her behalf.

"It's… nice," she murmurs. "It's good to feel useful, like I'm doing something that matters. It's nice to see them smile, even if it's only for a little while. I like that I can do that for them. I feel… needed, I guess." She chews the inside of her cheek to school her emotions. Softer, again looking down at the pavement, she whispers, "That probably sounds foolish to someone like you. I mean, you do that all the time."

"That's not true at all," Edward quietly counters, wanting so much to reach out and touch her cheek, to wipe away the wetness that pools along her eyelids.

"You really don't care that I'm not Catholic?" she asks. "I mean, it's not inappropriate or anything that I volunteer there? Father Carlisle never asked. I think he just… assumed I was."

"No," is his immediate and automatic response. Not because he knows that the elder priest knows already, but because what Bella calls herself doesn't matter. "No, I don't care. It doesn't matter. Goodness comes in many forms."

About a block away from her apartment, heavy, fat flakes of silvery white begin to fall, raining down and coating everything in pristine white. Tufts of cotton gather in Bella's hair, and with the pale light shining down from a nearby lamp, to Edward's eyes, the crystalline facets shimmer like a halo.

So quietly that he's not certain she can hear, he whispers, "Bella? Do you believe in God?"

Bella looks at him in question and then stares up at the sky, extending her hand out to catch the falling snow. "I believe in something."

.

.


	7. Confutatis maledictis

**VII. Confutatis maledictis**

* * *

><p>"Why are you here?"<p>

The heavy oaken door shuts behind him with a soft click.

With a slight and gentle smile, ignoring the hateful, rasping tone of her query, Edward turns to face the girl propped up by pillows on the heavy bed in the center of the room. She's frail and swaying, even though she pretends that she's not, and as he takes in the smoothness of her newly shaven head and the deep hollows beneath her clavicles, compassion wells within him.

Despite her wasting sickness and the pain seemingly permanently etched in her features, Leah looks so much like her younger brother.

"To visit you, of course," Edward quietly offers, sinking into this all-too-familiar role and shoving all of the _othe_r thoughts that have been swirling in his mind away.

When he breathes in, the harsh chemicals coursing through Leah's veins leave a metallic, ugly, and unpalatable taste on his tongue. The opiates and alkaloids are so concentrated and strong that they _almost_ mask the pungent evidence of the cancer that's eating away at her from the inside. Without asking or checking her charts, from that alone, Edward knows that Seth's sister's remaining time on earth is limited. A couple of months at best, and those will not be pleasant ones.

Another young life stolen too early, he silently laments, as his thumb rubs against the well-worn strand of beads in his pocket.

"Well, you can leave," Leah spits, seething, as she balls her fists around the sheet spread across her lap. "I don't believe in your _God_."

There is _so much_ bitterness and rage in this girl's shaking voice that most would turn away in defeat, but Edward knows better. He hears the words she doesn't speak aloud and he feels the rippling fear and the sorrow that engulf her thoughts. So instead of leaving or even speaking, he silently crosses the room to the end of her hospital bed, where he slowly sits, patient and calm, waiting for the rest to come pouring out.

The silence stretches on and on, a seemingly endless chasm, punctuated only by her labored breathing and the jagged blip of the heart monitor beside the bed.

"Where's Father Carlisle anyway?" she finally asks, picking at the hem of the sheet. "He's usually the one that stops by."

"He's ill right now," Edward says, replaying in his mind the last two nights of rattling lungs and phlegm-ridden coughs. "He doesn't want to risk passing anything to you."

Leah's gaze sweeps from her lap to the window beside the bed. It's dark out already, and through the glass, the city lights below twinkle like a blanket of stars. "Yeah," she mutters, her volume falling to just above a whisper. "I get that a lot."

Edward doesn't ask how she feels, nor does he try to convince her of the existence of her Maker. Leah believes, he knows, despite what she said when he walked through the door. A thousand times, he's seen this process – the cycle of anger and grief and eventual acceptance – yet despite those many years, never does he grow immune to its effects.

"Don't you have somewhere else to be?"

Hands clasped, Edward tilts his head, saying nothing until she looks at him once more. When she does, he merely shrugs. "Not particularly."

"Did Mom send you?"

"No."

"Did Seth?" When Leah says her brother's name, something shifts in her voice. It warms, and behind her dark eyes, Edward sees an image of Seth as a young boy, awkward and lanky, grinning a broad toothy grin that hasn't ever changed.

Softer, he replies, "No, he didn't. He merely said that you were back here. Coming to see you was my own decision. I thought you might like some company."

The girl's features abruptly fold and pinch, and in his periphery, Edward sees her thumb jab at the red button that will deliver her morphine.

"Let me guess," she mumbles. Pausing with gritted teeth, Leah closes her eyes before gasping as the clear droplet in the line falls and hits her vein. "You're planning to give me some, 'Let not your heart be troubled' bullshit or something about, 'I go to prepare a place for you with many mansions.'"

Her sarcasm and belligerence in the midst of her pain make him shake his head. "No, I hadn't really planned on it."

"Why not?" Leah smiles in spite of herself. "Isn't that what you're supposed to do?"

"Maybe." Edward shrugs again. "But you already know that one, so what's the point?"

Their eyes meet then, amber to nearly black. For a long, still moment, neither looks away. Leah's thoughts are tumbling, knocked askew by the man in black before her. She sighs, slumps against the pillows behind her, and finally says in resignation, "Fine. Give me something I don't know."

Wordlessly, Edward rises from his perch at the end of the bed and steps toward her, closing the gulf between them. In silent question, he extends his hand, asking for hers.

When she hesitantly complies, placing her feverish hand in his cold one, Edward turns her palm around and gently pinches her thumb and index finger together. Under his breath, so quietly that she cannot hear, he speaks the Latin phrases, as he guides their joined hands to her forehead, to her sternum, slowly to the left, and then to the right.

"In my distress, I called to the Lord. I cried to my God for help. From his temple, he heard my voice; my cry came before him, into his ears," Edward murmurs, his voice low and liquid, still holding her hand in his. "He parted the heavens and came down; dark clouds were under his feet. He mounted the cherubim and flew; he soared on the wings of the wind… He reached down from on high and took hold of me; he drew me out of deep waters. He rescued me from my powerful enemy, from my foes, who were too strong for me."

"What does that even mean?" Leah whispers, her gaze falling and spiking the room with the scent of salt and unshed tears.

Swallowing, Edward sits down beside her again, closer now, and touches the tip of his finger to her cheek, dragging it to her chin. "It means you are a child of God. You have to but call His name and He will save you."

Salvation. The word is both bitter and sweet – the gift the soulless can only long to possess.

"What?" she stutters. "God's going to somehow cure me? Yeah, I doubt that."

"No," he answers, tilting her chin up. "It's your soul He will save."

Leah crumples then, and falls into his chest, crying and clawing at the wool of his coat. "Father, it's not fair! I don't want to die!"

"I know," Edward soothes, as he gently holds the frail, sobbing girl, rocking her until her tears eventually dry and quiet.

Hearing the desperation and mourning for what will be, the temptation to grant her her wish is almost overwhelming, so much so that venom wets and slicks Edward's teeth in preparation. But the moment he considers giving in, those images from long ago strike, instantly quashing the notion, forcing him to gulp back his poison.

For he cannot ever break that vow again.

He _will not_ damn another soul.

**~.~.~**

It's snowing again, the second time in so many weeks, but this night, it's unwelcome and far more dangerous than the flurries from before. Tonight, the wind whips sharply from the lake, plunging the temperature of the air below zero. It's a bitter night, and those few that depart the hospital's warmth scurry to their cars wrapped in scarves and heavy coats.

By the time Edward steps out into the cold, it's nearly eleven, far past the close of normal visiting hours and much, much later than he'd intended. Yet despite the hour, he cannot bring himself to regret staying as he replays the reluctant smile affixed to Leah's sad face when she finally drifted off to sleep. That his presence could provide her some measure of peace gives him the same.

Oddly enough, Bella's words and voice from nights ago now echo in his mind, and with them comes a sudden, not altogether unexpected ache of longing – a craving to see her, to bask in her nearness, to hear the rhythmic pulse of her heart. While he still burns for her, the hours between the time he leaves her at her apartment door each night and the moment she appears at the shelter's kitchen have grown long.

Without thought or conscious direction, Edward immediately sets his sight toward the shelter, forcing himself to keep a human pace.

It's as he's passing a row of crumbling tenement houses with darkened alleys and broken street lamps that that pang of longing is replaced by something else. For a split second, he stops in his tracks and like the predator he is, he instinctively inhales, testing and tasting the air. There's the faint hint of an almost familiar scent. It's so distant and diluted by wind and snow that he can't quite place it.

Nonetheless, a seed of worry – of even panic – settles in the pit of Edward's stomach, and when he starts walking again, it grows with each and every step.

Edward's stride lengthens and speeds, kicking up sprays of white, feather-light powder.

Bella isn't due to leave for another thirty minutes, he reminds himself, yet the same _something_ that drew him to inhale before now compels his hand and pulls his phone from his pocket.

In bright, glowing black on white, his panic comes to life: _I'm exhausted. Jake said he'd take care of lock up, so I'm going to go ahead home. I'll see you tomorrow? I told Father Carlisle that I'd be in early._

"Damn it," he mutters, as he tests the air again.

This time the scent is stronger. It's saccharine, like thick, sugary syrup on his tongue, and there are undertones of jasmine and something else.

Instantly, Edward's fingers curl into tight, shaking claws and his body violently locks down as all fears of back alley evil and troubled minds vanish, traded for something far worse and far more lethal.

Something he has not encountered in many, many years – another demon, just like him.

_Vampire. _

.

.

* * *

><p>In the first segment, when Leah says, "Let not your heart be troubled… " she is referring to <strong><em>John 14<em>**. The verses that Edward replies with are from _**Psalm 18**_.


	8. Lacrimosa dies illa

**VIII. Lacrimosa dies illa**

* * *

><p><em>Vampire.<em>

For the first time inside this city, Edward uses every bit of his unnatural power and speed. Heedless of late night passersby, racing through the nearly empty streets, he's no more than a dark, streaky blur, trailed by a whirling vortex of powdery white.

With every breath of ice-cold air, this new vampire's scent grows stronger and stronger, saturating the air until it's all he can smell. He can taste it, as well as the hints and nuances that eluded him before. Even though Edward knows that he has never encountered this particular creature before, there's still something so very familiar that he can't place, and that scares him as much as anything else.

Edward can only pray that this is all a horrific case of happenstance – that Bella is safe in her bed and this newcomer is merely passing through.

It's as he flying past St. Mark's, however, that scent becomes a truly tangible thing. The sugary, syrupy smell is pasted to the very ground on which he runs, and when he glances down, Edward's unbeating heart instantly splutters into an outright frenzy.

There in the snow, he sees two sets of overlapping footprints. One, Edward knows like the back of his own hand; Bella's short stride and delicate step is a forever stamp on his indelible memory. The other, he knows not at all, yet the perfection of the matching gait is all the evidence he needs.

This enemy's target and his are one and the same.

In a single moment of realization, Edward knows, beyond all doubt, that with the succulent, mind-bending allure of Bella's blood, no other of his kind would hesitate to murder her on the spot.

Desperate, he scans a hundred minds, reaching out as far as he can, searching for this vampire's thoughts, or for Bella's face – for _something_ to prove that she still lives. But both she and the vampire are nowhere, both lost in a sea of jumbled scenes and clamoring voices.

"Please, Father!" Edward begs, as he careens around the first corner toward Bella's home. As he runs, he mutters the phrases a hundred times, a mindless, repeating chant of _forgive me_ and _save her_ and _help me_ and _I'll do anything._

Four blocks from her apartment, a blood-curdling scream rips through the air.

Without words or mental context, he can't tell if it's fear or pain he hears, but whatever it is halts his mind's pleading. It's as though a switch is thrown, and something else altogether takes over. Violent, boiling fury floods his entire being, and in this single moment in time, any and all remaining signs of his attempts at humanity or grace are gone.

Edward the priest is no more. Instead, in his place and with the darkness of death in his eyes, a sleek, lithe instinctual machine vaults over a line of cars and splinters the pavement beneath him when he lands.

Blocks speed by in mere seconds, but then Bella screams again, a loud, sharp, "Please, no!"

Propelled by that awful sound, Edward makes a final turn into the mouth of a dark, barely lit alleyway, where he instantly _stops_, skidding and spraying a wall of snow.

Two things happen at once.

The vampire scent he's been following abruptly vanishes, its trail shooting straight up into the night as though the demon abandoned his chase and inexplicably scaled the nearest building.

And he sees Bella.

Pinned against an old brick wall, with a combat knife at her throat, Bella is pleading with a man in tattered old army fatigues. It's not the image Edward believed he'd encounter. He's confused by the vampire's strange departure, but seeing her at this human's mercy is no less terrifying.

Every muscle in his body quivers, petitioning to kill, yet one false move, and Edward knows that the knife will do its worst. Instead, he slowly and silently creeps closer.

"Jimmy?" Bella whispers, stuttering as frightened tears streak down her cheeks. Her heartbeat is soaring, the loudest, most meaningful sound in Edward's ears. "It's me," she goes on quietly, squeezing her eyes shut. "It's me, Bella. From the shelter. Remember me? Please don't hurt me, Jimmy."

"Shut up!" Jimmy screams, pressing the blade deeper, just on the verge of breaking skin. "Shut up! Stop moving!"

Wide-eyed and crazed, his head thrashes back and forth, and in it, Edward sees mangled, distorted images of a town a world away. Desert sand whips through the air, and fiery bombs explode all around. Wearing a bulky vest over her black robes and _chadri_, a woman huddles in the corner of a shaking building, her thumb hovering over a bright red button. Trembling, dissonant prayers fall from her lips before the image cuts away, segueing into another – this one a rain of fire and ash and blasting sand.

"Jimmy? Please!" Bella pleads again, uselessly scrabbling against his iron grip.

With a furious growl, still lost in years long past, Jimmy rears back and backhands Bella across the face, making her head pop against the brick behind her. She whimpers once from the pain of his assault and then again when he brings the knife back to her neck. This time, however, as he presses the gleaming blade against her skin, it's just enough that a thin, shallow slice appears.

A tiny line of dark, liquid crimson bubbles to the surface.

The split second Edward sees her blood spill, his lungs seal shut, his vision turns viciously red, and he _attacks_.

Without sound or warning, his mind devoid of anything but instant, white-hot rage, Edward hurls himself across the empty space, grabbing Jimmy around the ribcage and crushing him backward into his chest.

Bones crack as Edward squeezes.

Jimmy's air comes out in a single, surprised punch of air, but then he reacts, shrieking, flailing, fighting to maneuver around. Mindless, screaming a barrage of obscenities, he stabs his knife against Edward's unyielding flesh. It's nothing, not even a scratch, but still consumed by that single image of Bella bruised and bleeding, Edward slings the flopping human down the alley, as far away from her as he can manage.

For what seems like forever, Jimmy flies through the air, tumbling head over heels, until his back and head slam against the far brick wall with a wet splatter and a loud, sickening crunch. Like a rag doll, he crumples to the pavement, broken and beaten and_ lifeless_.

The world seems to slow and silence then, and it takes Edward a moment to realize what he's just done.

He's killed.

Again.

After so many decades, against every vow and every promise, warranted or not, he's taken yet another life.

He doesn't have time to dwell on this new mountain of remorse, however. Not now, he knows. For behind him, Edward hears the distinct rustle of fabric, followed by a soft, strangled cry that pierces him through and through.

Reluctant, he turns, this time slowly, at a rightful human pace. As soon as he does, Bella staggers against the building behind her, her palm moving to cover her injured throat. Her gentle face is now a mask of confusion and horror, and as though struck again, as soon her glazed eyes find his midnight ones, Edward knows that she saw _everything_ he wishes she hadn't.

And of course, as if to flay him alive, as he tastes that too-perfect trickle in the air, a bloom of punishing fire finally roars across the back of his throat, and a new kind of terror consumes him – a fear of himself, of what his own inner demon might do.

But all of that halts the second Bella's knees begin to buckle.

"Edward?" she mouths, slurring and swaying. "Wha–"

Before she hits the ground, without thought or pause, in a single, lightning flash of motion, Edward is already there.

**~.~.~**

"Don't go," Bella mumbles, finally on the cusp of deep sleep, as he drapes a third, thicker blanket across her shoulders, tucking it all around her to make a quilted cocoon. An hour after that horrific scene, she's still trembling.

Rightfully so. The darkening blossom on her cheek and the slim white bandage at the base of her throat – not so subtle reminders of what almost was – make _him_ tremble.

Almost as though she can sense him drifting away, with a furrowed brow, softer, drawing out the long vowel almost as if sighing, Bella murmurs again. "Stay… Stay with me."

Gently, Edward lowers himself to the edge of her bed in instant obedience, unsure and utterly lost. Frozen in place and staring at her sleeping form, countless minutes pass, where it's all he can do to stay upright, half of him knowing that he should flee, the other half wanting to lie down beside her. It's a war that he cannot win.

And worse, with every tick of the clock on the wall, the guilt he suppressed in the alley is now a living, breathing thing, stretching his chest, and so powerful that it makes him double over and weep non-existent tears.

"God, what have I done?" Edward whispers, grasping and tugging his hair in angered sorrow. When he sucks in a lungful of air, the immediate blazing inferno that engulfs his throat is fitting, so he scorches himself over and over.

These last decades mean nothing.

Yet despite the wrongness and evilness of his actions, Edward instinctively knows that he'd do it all over again. Without hesitation.

In fact, deep down, beyond the plunging guilt, he is grateful.

Because Bella still lives.

Even though he doesn't understand how. Or why.

That other vampire _should_ have killed her, he argues. But instead, when Edward revisits those few brief minutes as he chased that wretched scent through the streets of Chicago, as inexplicable as it seems, it's almost as though he were being led.

"I know you," Bella abruptly slurs, as she rolls onto her side and blindly reaches out. When her fingers find and close over his, warm and as soft as spun silk, her heart rate slows, and she smiles. "_Angel_."

_Angel_, she called him. He can taste the bitterness of that word.

One-hundred and eighty degrees from what he is. It's a smack to the face, and with a harsh flinch, Edward is suddenly propelled back in time.

_After three weeks of self-imposed abstinence, his thirst is unbearable – unquenchable in a way that only his first days as a newborn demon can compare. Every heartbeat sounds like a hammer, ringing in his ears, and every time Edward breathes in, hellfire rips through his esophagus. _

_With each passing minute, the sky is gradually darkening, and by six, the park is almost clear of its normal Saturday inhabitants. Hidden deep within the trees, he watches a family of seven. With wild exuberance, the children are laughing, running, and playing, chasing each other across the grassy knoll. Naïve as only children can be, they are oblivious to the headlines, ignorant of the mustached man who aims to rule a continent an ocean away. _

_So enthralled by their innocent joy, the rustle of leaves beside him takes Edward by surprise. _

"_Hello!" she says, giggling as though she's discovered a lost treasure instead of a red-eyed monster in the bushes. No more than five years of age, the girl doesn't even reach his waist. "I'm Elizabeth!"_

_Through the child's eyes, Edward sees a shimmering, ethereal reflection of himself – tall, pale, with features as though carved from polished marble. Somehow, and he doesn't know how, she knows that he's not human. _

_She thinks him beautiful. _

"_I'm Edward," he whispers. Her blonde, ringlet curls glisten in the waning light, throwing a rainbow of honeyed golds. Captivated, Edward reaches out, meaning only to touch, to test the delicate softness. _

_The little girl grins at his strange behavior, giggling again, but then without warning exclaims, "Look what I got!"_

_Close enough that Edward can see the microscopic map of canyons and valleys in her skin, Elizabeth holds up her hand. _

_A jagged, red, and swollen cut across her knuckle fills his vision. _

_Before he can think, Edward inhales through his nostrils, and the scent and fire of her flowing blood make him insane. He blinks, and the girl is suddenly in his arms, his teeth already puncturing her throat._

_Squealing in pain and fear, she tries to escape, beating her small fists against his chest. But it's no use. He's too lost in the rage of bloodlust to register anything but the exquisite, cooling liquid running down his throat. _

_After only a few long, suctioning draughts, the child's limbs still, and her mind grows calm. Her palms somehow find his cheeks, patting ever so gently, and through blurred eyes, she sees a sliver of sunlight reflect off his granite skin. _

_Her mind whispers a single word before she breathes her last. "Angel."_

_Physically sated but strangely distraught, Edward wanders the streets for hours. The voices are always there in the back of his mind, and he always feels that twinge of guilt when he kills. But this time, the little girl's wondering whisper screams louder than a freight train. It's all he can hear, and he can still feel the warmth of her body fading, turning cold in his arms. _

_A monster. A murderer. The devil himself, he thinks, as his stomach churns and rolls. This is a new sensation, an outright sickness, and as his mind plays her final words again and again – a constant, condemning repetition – Edward lurches into a dark corner and violently expels the very sustenance that he just stole. _

_When he emerges, reeling, lost, angry, and cursing his very existence, Edward's eyes land on a beacon of light, a pillar of brightness shining up into the darkness of the long night. Without thought or direction, like a moth drawn to the flame, his feet carry him toward it. _

_Just outside an old iron fence, an elderly man stands. With withered hands and sunken cheeks, he's a stark figure cut in all black. The only hint of color is a square of pale white at the base of his throat. _

_Why this old man is standing outside at this late hour, Edward doesn't know. But the moment he sees Edward approach, his face suddenly warms. _

"_Good evening, my son," he says, his voice soft and unbearably kind. "You look lost."_

_Edward nods, speechless, staring into the wide open doors behind him. _

"_I'm Father Benjamin. Welcome to St. Mark's. Would you like to come inside?" _

.

.

* * *

><p>-A <em>chadri<em> is a type of full-face veil worn by women in some countries. Under the Taliban, it was required in Afghanistan. As Father Carlisle alluded to in an earlier chapter, Jimmy once served there in the military.

-Above, where it says '_mustached man who aims to rule a continent' _that's a reference to Hitler's rise to power in the mid 1930s and to events preceding WWII. From hints in previous chapters, you can assume that by the end of WWII (1945), Edward had not only gone 'vegetarian', but was also a priest.

-Yes, the St. Mark's in the flashback is the same St. Mark's that Edward serves now.


	9. Domine Jesu Christe

**IX. Domine Jesu Christe**

* * *

><p>"How do you become a…"<p>

Carefully tiptoeing around the one word Edward isn't sure he can bear hearing from her lips again, Bella hesitates. She fiddles with the fraying hem of her sleeve – a nervous gesture that belies the slow and steady thump of her heart – and swallows before trying again. "Were you… _born_ like this?" she asks, her voice almost a whisper by the end.

Edward still can't believe that they are having this conversation, and inside, he's adrift and reeling. From her _knowing _exactly what she shouldn't – what he swore to himself to never divulge – of course, but it's her too-calm, irrational acceptance of his inhuman nature that has him utterly spinning. Each new question, delivered in that delicate, soft voice, is a blow to his knees, and there have been so many in this last hour that it's a wonder he's still standing.

Why he can't deny her bewilders him.

He should have. From the very start, from that very first query, he should have lied and convinced Bella into believing that last night's bloody fray was merely the product of a horrific dream. Because the truth is dangerous – for her and for him – and everything about this exchange is entirely wrong, but like a man possessed by the very fire that consumes him, Edward gave up trying long ago.

"No, I wasn't born… like I am," he finally says, wincing in remembrance, as he looks down at the gray-white squares of linoleum beneath his polished oxfords.

In his periphery, Bella's bare feet swing back and forth. She's so incredibly close – an arm's length away – yet the few feet between them might as well be a mile. For at this single instant in time, as he openly acknowledges his unnatural existence before this very fragile human girl, Edward has never felt more alien or further from the humanity that he holds so dear.

Desperate to hide from Bella's relentless, probing gaze, Edward abruptly turns away and busies himself with the mindless, mundane task of preparing her a meal. It's been hours since she's eaten, he thinks, distracting himself from the sinking sensation in his midsection. Delayed shock is the only explanation for her demeanor, he argues.

"Then how?" Bella presses. Her short nails drum a tight, clicking rhythm against Formica.

Edward doesn't answer at first, because he's certain that _this_ will be what has her screaming and running away as fast as she can. And despite all better reasoning and rightness, as much as he fears the attachment that he can no longer refute and the repercussions that attachment entails, that's the last thing he wants to see. So instead, Edward stalls even longer, turning back and awkwardly pushing an ill-shapen pile of bread and meat across the counter.

"Here, please eat," he softly implores.

Pulling the plate toward her but leaving the food untouched, Bella asks him one more time, betraying just a whisper of irritation, "Are you going to answer me?"

Closing his eyes, Edward grips the counter for grounding, flinching when he hears the telltale crack and crumble. Speaking so quietly he's uncertain that she can hear, he whispers, "I was _bitten_."

For the first time in an hour, her heart rate quickens to a gallop, and there's a rapid rush of sucked-in air that has nothing to do with the newly mangled state of her countertop. "Bitten?" she whispers back, drumming her fingers faster. "Like the myths?"

Taking a shallow sip of air, the barest tang of adrenaline now spikes the air. As faint as it is, it still paints Edward's tongue. Yet another reminder.

Were this any other time or any other situation, Edward might have laughed at being compared to the mythological undead. But this _isn't_ any other time or any other situation. They're _here_ and having _this_ conversation because he's killed a human being – a sick and lowly man whose mind had been so warped by trauma that he didn't know today from yesterday.

For her, he's killed. And undeniably, for himself. That godawful weight from the night before – the one that had him doubled over and weeping nonexistent tears – returns once more, heavy enough that he swears it could crush him.

"Sort of." He nods with a grimace and reluctantly opens his eyes, only to find her head now tilted left in contemplation. "We're… venomous." _Like the Serpent. _

Bella stills. "When?"

"1918."

The silence that follows this utterance is deafening, a yawning chasm only breached by her still-beating heart and by the high-pitched warbling whine of a distant siren. Frozen in an image of unpleasant surprise, Bella's dark eyes are wide and exposed, their hollows shadowed by the soft lamplight nearby, and her lips are slack, as if whatever she'd planned to say was swallowed whole.

"Say something," he nearly pleads, slowly settling on the opposite stool.

"Your family? Chicago?"

"Everything I told you the other night was true. I just didn't tell you when."

It takes her a few moments to process what he's said, and in those few miserable seconds, Edward wishes for the hundredth time that he could hear something from her mind. _Something_. Just a murmur or an intonation. Something to show that in her eyes he isn't the condemned creature he knows himself to be. It's a foolish and selfish prayer, Edward realizes, yet he prays for it anyway.

"So you really are… a _vampire_," Bella says, a little breathless, motioning toward the countertop and the splintered indentations where his thumbs just were. "You're not lying, are you?"

"No. I'm not." Meeting her gaze for the first time since they began, pale amber to deepest sable, he shakes his head ever so slightly. "I wish that I were."

"Why?" Tilting her head again, her expression takes on something he can only call incredulity, and it baffles him how she can't see what's in plain sight.

Barking a humorless laugh, Edward waves a haphazard hand. "Isn't it obvious?"

"No, not to me."

Something unfamiliar and very warm surges inside Edward's empty chest, and he swallows, both literally and figuratively. "Never mind."

Before he has a chance to dwell on this new and pleasant sensation, however, Bella leans forward and stuns him yet again, and in the process, turns him back to ice. "Are you really a priest, too?"

"Yes, I am," he quietly replies. _Or was._ That pale white collar around the base of his throat constricts like a hangman's noose. Edward has no idea what last night's sins have cost him there – if he can even consider himself a servant of God at all. But Jimmy's face, contorted in mindless rage and pain, is suddenly all he can see.

"Why?"

His face pinches sharply. "May I answer that one later?"

Without warning, seeing something he doesn't know, Bella reaches across the canyon between them and gently brushes the tips of her fingers across the back of his hand, leaving a fiery trail in their wake that somehow pulls him out of the spiraling churn.

"Is it okay to ask how long?" she asks, soft as spun silk.

"Since 1942." Edward's lips turn down, but this question is easier. "I came straight out of seminary and was sent to the army, of all places. I served as a chaplain until the end of 1945."

Bella's eyes nearly boggle. "As in…"

"World War II."

**~.~.~**

For the next four hours, non-stop, they speak of history and of Edward's place in it.

At Bella's wondering behest, he describes what little he retained from his human years. Destroyed by the Hell of transformation, all that's left are the vague, blurred memories of the senses – his mother's voice with her subtle Irish lilt, the cloying sweetness of his father's pipe, the clop of hooves and the clug of early engines – but nonetheless, because she asked, he gives her everything he can.

Later, as the sun begins to sink below the city line, in greater detail and fueled by his perfect vampiric recall, they talk of breadlines, of propaganda, and of the marches of the sixties – things Bella has only seen in movies and in text.

And because God must despise him, Bella then moves to far, far more difficult topics, asking him about his _diet _and even of his accidental creation. He nearly chokes when he recounts how he was left on the street on the very brink of dying, filled with Hellfire and venom, and worse, how when he awoke, he became a demon of legend.

But whatever she asks, still incapable of denying her in anything, Edward confesses.

_Everything._

Trembling, with his face buried deep inside of his hands, for the first time to another living soul, Edward spills the litany of his many sins – of those he's killed, of his very damnation.

"Edward?" Bella finally murmurs, halting him mid-sentence. Rising from her seat, she silently steps toward him, stopping only once he's spread his knees to allow her closer still. The heat from her body rolls across the space between them, hitting him in crashing waves. "I understand it now."

"Understand what?" he breathes, not daring to look up for fear of what he'll see. Surely, now she will run screaming, he thinks.

"Why you became a priest. Why you do what you do."

He doesn't breathe, let alone answer.

"Atonement." Bella reaches out and pulls his hands away from his face. "I'm so sorry Jimmy died. He was sick and didn't know what he was doing."

Slowly, reluctantly, Edward looks up to find profound compassion written in every line of her face. "I know."

"This will sound awful," she goes on, squeezing his hands. She's so incredibly _warm_ and the oh-so-rare contact makes something inside of him hum. "But I'm sorrier that _you_ had to kill him.

"And I still thank you for saving me."

"I had no choice. I couldn't think," he whispers, shaking his head. "Not when I saw him hurt you. I didn't want to kill him but I _had_ to get him away from you." Edward's teeth grit, but when he sees her eyes grow softer still, his non-existent heart aches for a different reason. "I would do it again."

Time seems to fade and then cease altogether as she releases her grip on his fingers, only to stretch her slender arms up and around his neck. Slowly, as if asking permission, she pulls herself up on her toes, as her eyes drop to the base of his throat and stare at that glaring square of white. "I'm sorry. I– I shouldn't want…"

Edward can feel her heart thrumming, and for a long moment, he can only stare back down at her – mesmerized. When Bella begins to pull away, without conscious direction, Edward's forefinger darts up too fast for her to see, stopping her retreat as he begins to lightly, ever-so-gently trace the high curve of her cheekbone.

He touches her as though she's precious glass.

"God, forgive me," he whispers, not sure what he's truly asking.

For countless minutes, no more than inches apart, they continue to stare. Her breath comes out in a warm pant, and then when he makes no move to stop her or push her away, Bella leans up and lightly presses her mouth to his.

.

.


	10. Hostias et preces

**X. Hostias et preces**

* * *

><p>Two days have passed since he divulged both his existence and his sins, and in some ways, as they exit Bella's apartment and finally venture out into the freshly fallen snow, Edward's step is lighter than it was before. Like a drowning man breaking the surface, he can now <em>breathe<em>, and each time he does, the frigid air that he takes into his lungs holds a certain newness to it, a cleanness and sweetness that defies the dingy city all around.

Of course, at the same time, however, a whole host of new and vicious demons now cling to his back, and every time Edward wets his lips, recalling that second of oh-so-warm contact with hers, the collar he still wears cinches like a noose. And as they sift their way down the cotton-covered sidewalk, with each step closer to the one place he can call home, an emptiness – a certain breed of fear or apprehension – fills and expands his hollow chest.

Everything he's known, everything he's built, and everything he's attempted to be is now in tatters – loose, frayed ends that whip in the ever-constant wind.

"You said there was another vampire around." It's less a question, more a softly spoken statement. Nonetheless, as with anything she says or does, Bella momentarily pulls him from the depths.

They pause at the first light, and Edward eyes her askance, cataloguing her subtle human tells. Nervously flitting from side to side, Bella's eyes are alert, wider than usual, and a pale pink dusting of color lights the apples of her cheeks. When she looks left, noting his appraisal, the color deepens ever so slightly, and her bottom lip draws between her teeth.

"There was," he says slowly, gauging the quick skip of her heart. "He may still be around. But please don't worry yourself."

"Yeah, right," she mutters.

As inappropriate as it is considering their strange predicament and conversation, he can't help but flash the ghost of a smile at the gravel in her return.

"But he _was_ following me, right?"

"Yes, I think so." Frowning down at the slushy street, Edward's fists involuntarily curl. He could lie to her, he knows, and save her the stress and the fear, but the taste of untruth, especially when it comes to _her_, is bitter to his tongue.

As soon as their signal flickers go-ahead-green, before she can step off the curb, without thinking, Edward offers Bella his arm. When she takes what he offers, wordlessly threading her arm through his, he blinks and then stares at where their bodies connect.

"Why?"

Edward clears his throat, tearing his eyes away so that he can focus on the far more urgent issue at hand – her safety. "I'm not sure exactly. His behavior wasn't what I'd call… normal for my kind."

"What do you mean?" she asks. Bella squeezes his forearm. Even through her thick mittens and his heavy woolen coat, he can feel her warmth bleed into him, and the steady, resonating thrum of blood flowing through her veins is almost soothing. "I thought that's what vampires do – you know, stalk humans." Her pink lips twitch, fighting off a smile. "Well…except you, of course."

Edward's voice is low when he answers, his tone grave, the opposite of hers, because speaking in any way of Bella's near death is _painful_. It's _physically _painful for him – an invisible knife that twists and burrows deep inside. "What's abnormal wasn't that he was following you, Bella. It's that he stopped.

"I can't explain it at all," he goes on, shaking his head and in the process, slinging a spray of powdery snow. "If it wasn't absurd, I'd swear that he was leading me to you. And to Jimmy."

Bella doesn't speak for a moment, but when she does, he doesn't understand her at all. "Are you saying I have a guardian vampire?"

Edward's brows lift and then furrow in confusion.

"Okay, fine," she laughs, patting his arm, seeing what in his expression, he can't fathom. "Are you saying I have_ two_ guardian vampires?"

Her words are nonsensical, laughable in their naiveté, but staring down at the lift of her cheeks and the brilliant upturn of her lips, it's like a light blazing into the dark, and Edward suddenly realizes that he's being given a glimpse of the truly impossible.

Bella is teasing him.

Despite everything she's seen and heard. Despite knowing _exactly_ what he is and what lurks beneath his all-black facade.

More important than all of that, she's still standing _here_ – _with him _– with her slender arm wrapped around his and leaning into his side, and she's smiling up at him, guileless, with no pretense or agenda.

All he can think about is that gentle pressure of her mouth and the warmth of her breath.

And how in that single instant when she'd clung to his neck and pulled herself up on her toes, for the first time in his long, lonely existence, the earth momentarily righted.

And that he'd sacrifice the soul he doesn't possess to feel that moment of blinding joy again.

He loves her.

**~.~.~**

Minutes later, still drowning in revelation, Edward barely notices when they stop just outside the cathedral.

Overhead, the bells chime four, and as if on cue, a dozen sopranos begin to soar through the octaves. A late choir arrival rushes past them, and when she slips through the door, from inside the nave, comes the spicy aroma of burning candles and freshly lit incense. It's a grounding smell, one Edward has known for countless years, and it slowly brings him out of the fog.

"Edward?"

When he glances down, Bella is still holding his arm. Yet her expression is off – pained perhaps – and immediately, his dead heart thumps.

"What's wrong?" he gently asks. "I told you, please don't worry."

Bella looks down at her feet and then wrests her arm away. He feels bare without her touch, as though something essential has been torn away.

"I've put you in a terrible position, haven't I?" she whispers, nervously pushing a stray strand of hair behind her ear.

He swallows. "How do you mean?"

"I know…" Her cheeks flush with a surge of shame. He can feel the heat radiating from her face. "I know that I shouldn't have kissed you. But I'm not sorry."

"It's all right," he soothes, despising her discomfort. Of course, she's right, he knows. She shouldn't have, yet he's the one who bears all the guilt. For a hundred reasons, he shouldn't have kissed her back and for a hundred more, he shouldn't want to do it all over again.

"What happens to you now?" She looks up at him. "After what happened with Jimmy. And me. Are you still a–"

"Priest?" he finishes.

Bella nods.

It's a question for which he has no answer. The black he wears and cross he bears isn't just a job. It's a sacred vocation, a devotion unto death, or in his case, oblivion, that's now woven into the tapestry of his very being. Edward doesn't know how to be anything other than what he is, and what he once _was_ still demands his faithful penance. At the same time, however, the emotion for this fragile human woman for which he now has a name is a brazen sign painted on his chest. It's an impossible situation.

"I don't… know." He hesitates. "May we speak of this later? I need to get inside. And you'll be safe here, I'm certain."

When they open the doors and step into the dimly lit nave, however, Edward's muscles abruptly lock, as that almost-familiar scent from two nights past plasters to his tongue and blooms to life, overwhelming all else. An instinctive low and menacing growl rumbles through his chest, and beside him, Bella instantly stills, frantically searching from where Edward stands to where his now-black eyes are glued. Her heart sputters and then pounds at a gallop, so loud that Edward hears nothing else.

For there, at the front of the nave and standing beside Father Carlisle in the center of the aisle, is the very one whom he chased through the empty Chicago streets.

How this vampire entered the building Edward doesn't know, for he didn't smell the telltale saccharine scent outside. But immediately, his thoughts rip in two, torn between attacking and destroying, never mind their current location, and grabbing Bella and running away. When his fingers curl, he still doesn't know which he'll do.

_Edward? Let's not do anything rash, okay? _she calls.

For a split second he's confused. Seeing her step toward the elderly priest, he growls again, and so low that no human can hear, he spits, "I don't know who you are, but you will leave now. You will hurt no one here."

In his mind, there's a high, tinkling laugh, and then she turns to look at him square in the face. With dark cropped hair and bone-white skin, this vampire is slight of build, nymph-like in carriage, and her pale yellow eyes gleam in the candlelight.

_Don't be silly. I'm not here to feed. I'm here to see you. Look inside my head if you want. I've killed no human since the '30s. _

Edward flinches when Bella grips his the hem of his coat.

"Edward?"

Still torn and awash in confusion, he's frozen in place. Every bone in his body aches to lash out and take this newcomer down – to protect the one beside him – yet her enigmatic words, the proof in her eyes, and. more than anything else, that she somehow knows of his talent paralyzes him.

This new vampire waves, motioning them to come to the front. When Edward refuses to budge, she shakes her head, and in a strange, mirrored move of his and Bella's walk from her apartment, she threads her arm through Father Carlisle's and guides him to the back to meet them.

"Edward!" Carlisle says, smiling as though nothing at all were wrong. His blue eyes crinkle, as he pats the vampire's hand. "I have someone here who says she knows you!"

An image abruptly assaults Edward's mind and its effect is a punch in the gut.

As the elderly priest and the female slowly amble toward them, the click of her heels suddenly morphs into the _rat-tat-tat_ of gunfire. The heat from the pumping bellows warms his skin, and when Edward breathes in, there's no church, or incense, or even Bella. Instead, he smells nothing but death and decay.

The miserable face of a young dying man stares up at him from where the man's head rests on Edward's lap, nothing more than pale, sunken cheeks and bloodshot gray-blue eyes. His body is broken and wasted, and his life is quickly slipping away, his frail, beaten heart failing with each and every stuttering beat. "_Proszę!" _comes out in a broken pant, and an enormous weight inside Edward's own chest – the desperation, the _need_ to stop this madness – twists as though he were right there, right now, on his knees in Birkenau.

"_Kacper_," he whispers.

The vampire looks from Edward to Bella. But before he can open his mouth again, Bella's drops, and out of it comes a different name altogether.

"Alice?"

.

.

* * *

><p><em>Kacper<em> is the Polish variant of the Persian name _Kaspar _or_ Gaspar_. In English, that'd be either _Casper_ or _Jasper_.


	11. Sanctus Dominus Deus Sabaoth

**XI. Sanctus Dominus Deus Sabaoth**

* * *

><p>For the span of a single heartbeat, yet for what seems an eternity to Edward, time and movement cease to exist. Everything around them – the swell of the choir, the sunlight filtering through the stained glass arches, the spicy coils of smoke from the censers – defocuses and fades into nothing more than a dull gray backdrop.<p>

Staggered and struck dumb, Edward's amber gaze quickly flits across the frozen tableau, accessing and cataloguing, bouncing from Bella and her expression of unmistakable shock, to this new vampire with her fist still tucked inside of Father Carlisle's elbow, and then back to Bella again.

He doesn't understand any of this, neither the whys nor wherefores of her appearance, nor her strange demeanor, nor the hauntingly familiar images in her mind. And worse yet, just how Bella already knows this diminutive, fair-eyed vampire is unfathomable, beyond the realm of comprehension even with his expanded faculties. But the ramifications of it are even more so.

From somewhere high overhead, the pipe organ bellows a deep, resounding chord that shakes the stones beneath his feet, and as if awoken and reclaiming that second of lost time, the present abruptly jerks forward. In his periphery, Bella's parted lips turn up and her eyes brighten, gleaming in the candlelight, and even without hearing her mind, Edward knows her intention. His fingers twitch in automatic response. But just before his instincts strike to bar her way, the other vampire silently implores, _Don't, please. I swear that I won't hurt her. I would never, _and the soft conviction of her inner voice is utterly transparent, just enough to still him_._

"Alice, I can't believe it's you!" Bella exclaims, as she launches herself across the few feet remaining to wrap her arms around this new vampire's neck. On contact, she stiffens, her reaction slight and imperceptible to any human eye, but as bright and glaring as the mid-day sun to Edward. For in that so-small involuntarily jolt, he instantly grasps that Bella has pieced together exactly what this Alice is – knowledge that he isn't even sure he wants her to know.

Yet Bella doesn't pull away. Instead, regardless of the potential threat or the cold granite beneath her hands, she hangs on, somehow trusting even when he does not. Just as she does with him.

"Now, how do you two young ladies know one another?" comes the question Edward himself most wants to know. Sliding out of the way, Father Carlisle clasps his hands together and grins his crinkly-eyed grin.

Still hugging this _Alice_, Bella answers the priest, wearing her own responding grin – the one that makes Edward's unbeating heart hammer inside his empty chest. But it's Alice's silent response – the one just for him – that grabs his attention and holds it captive. For in her mind, there's a sudden, vivid, crystal-clear picture that she plays for him like a movie on a theater screen.

With shorter, shoulder-length hair and dark, grieving eyes, a year-younger Bella sits alone at a table by a stone hearth lit with a crackling fire. Situated between her pale hands, she holds a cup of untouched coffee, black and steaming, and she's frowning down at the pine knot tabletop, lost in thought. The furrow of her brow is sharper and deeper than Edward has ever seen it. And even though it's merely a memory, when those eyes he knows so well slowly turn to glass and she pushes the heels of her palms against their hollows, deep inside, a responding ache blooms and stretches his ribcage. It's a matching pain, a stark reminder of that night weeks ago when he encountered Bella alone in this very nave, when he was frozen in place, watching as she lifted her face to the golden reredos and quietly shed her tears of mourning.

It makes Edward want snatch her away and pull her into his arms right then and there, never mind the audience or consequence.

A forever-second passes before a new image overlaps the first. Then another, and another, as Alice plays for him their common story. Before his very eyes, as Edward watches Bella's pink lips begin to move and her hands wave in haphazard explanation, he sees her sadness somehow vanish. As she talks to this Alice from across the table, it slowly morphs into the glimmer of interest and finally turns into the lightness of hope and determination.

And he instantly comprehends what he's just seen.

_"So one day," _Bella had said, as they'd drifted through the darkened Chicago streets._ "I was just randomly talking to this girl in the coffee shop, and she said 'Why not move?' She said, 'Go get lost in some big city and just live.' I had no idea where to go. It wasn't like I'd done any real traveling as a kid. She suggested Chicago. So… here I am."_

"You?" Edward whispers under his breath, as Bella continues to smile at Father Carlisle's barrage of light-hearted questions. "You led her here? Why? I don't understand."

Ducking her dark head, Alice flashes an enigmatic smile before reluctantly turning Bella loose. Her eyes, so much like his own, bore into him with startling intensity. _I'm here to thank you, Edward. And to repay you, if you'll let me. _

"Repay me? But who are you?" he whispers again, his back straightening, his mind awash in a new kind of confusion.

Alice nods once before her thoughts gradually shift away from Bella, vaulting back through time.

On a gray city sidewalk, before him he sees a never-ending line of shiny Impalas, Chargers, and sleek black Mustangs. The sky overhead is dark, shadowed by the thundering charcoal mountains of a mid-summer storm. All around, people in wide-bottom denim and over-the-knee dresses scurry about, racing against the threat of the inevitable downpour.

Except for one. In the distance, outlined against the gray-violet sky, a tall, lanky man with wild dark hair appears. His gait is too smooth, falsely meandering, and it flows in a way that a human man could never replicate.

When the man's head tilts up to meet the one watching, it's Kacper's face Edward sees.

Yet it's not.

In this image, in this time and place, Kacper is no longer the starving Jewish boy with sunken cheeks that had died in his arms, nor is he the vengeful demon carved from stone that rose three days later. Instead, the eyes of Edward's one and only progeny match his own, light and golden, and in place of the hate and fury that had fueled the deadly rampage that had followed his waking, the expression Kacper wears in Alice's mind is that of both temperance and utter devotion.

An ancient ache, a gulf of remorse and guilt never spanned, threatens to take him under. Reaching for the corner of the closest pew, Edward's eyes shutter and his mouth runs dry, as he tries to reconcile the raging creature that clawed and spat and ran from him and the calm, quiet one he sees through this other vampire's eyes.

It's been _so_ many years…

_Jasper, as he goes by now, is my mate. _Alice smiles again, wistful and soft. _He said to tell you hello. _

Edward's grip on the pew tightens until the antique wood wears his fingerprints. It's a wonder that he's stayed upright, because inside, he's spinning.

A sudden slap to Edward's shoulder and Father Carlisle's ever-genuine laugh abruptly cut through the fog, however, interrupting the drowning sense of failure and responsibility that Edward has never overcome. "Can you imagine? From Washington to here. Now isn't that something else? God's earth is so much smaller than we ever realize."

"Yes, Father, it is," Edward says, slowly and softly, answering more than what was asked, as his gaze automatically moves to the priest's left. For a moment, he stares at her, watching the way she now quietly studies him. Bella's head is tilted, her teeth worrying her lower lip in an unconscious tell, and he knows without knowing that she _sees_ him as he is right now, that she wants to come to him. Even though she has no idea of what has just transpired, Edward knows that this fragile human that occupies his nonexistent heart wants to wrap her hands around his, to wrap _herself_ around him.

Alice says something by way of distraction, and the older priest grins and laughs again, harder this time.

But then something shifts.

The older man's body locks down, his muscles tensing, and his amusement is cut short as his laughter rolls into a harsh, jerking cough. Even focused on Bella, on Alice, on the strange yet familiar face in Alice's mind, Edward hears the unmistakable gurgling wetness in the priest's lungs and he recognizes that it's far worse than it was only days before. It's an instantly troubling sound that banishes away all those other churning thoughts and demons – more so when Edward samples the air.

A flash of a vision passes through Alice's mind, so fast and so sudden that Edward only catches the end. It's blurry and distorted, but he still detects the four white walls, the reek of decay, and the ping of a slowly dying heart. Somehow, perhaps due to the urgency of the image, the tenor, or maybe even the vagueness of it, Edward immediately apprehends that this vision is unlike the others Alice has shared. Not a picture of the past; instead, it's what is meant to be.

Acting as though nothing beyond the ordinary were amiss, Alice gently pats the elderly priest's wracking back and holds his withered hand in support, but her eyes, wide and worried, dart to Edward's.

_Get him to the hospital. _

Edward looks at Bella, torn and hesitating, as every mistrusting animal instinct of his roars that his place is here with her.

_Go, _Alice nearly shouts in his mind. _I'll take care of her and make sure she gets home okay. We'll talk later. _

**~.~.~**

"Bah," Carlisle scoffs, scratching the liver spotted skin around the needle in the back of his hand. His voice is rough and ragged from his earlier fits of coughing, and so close in the confines of the small white room, the heat radiating off the elderly man's body is too hot, too. "This is unnecessary. I have a church to see to."

"Father," Edward quietly says, moving toward the bed in the middle of the room. "You're unwell. I didn't realize just how much so until now."

"I'm old, I told you." Carlisle waves away Edward's concern. "It's just a cold. Or maybe the flu. I'll be up and running in a few days."

Tired, though impossible for his kind, Edward shakes his head, because he hears what others cannot. And now, concentrated in this small space, away from the normal incense and candles and all the other humans that scent the nave, he smells it, too. Faint, it's early still, but it's not unlike the decay inside the angry teenaged girl two floors down.

He curses under this breath for not detecting this sooner, for being absent, for failing.

Countless times over the years, he's seen this scene. Through his decades, he's visited so many sick and dying and he's delivered countless prayers and invocations. Despite so many, however, _this_ is what Edward hates most about his chosen vocation. And this time, unexpected as it is, it's worse because somehow, this elderly man has managed to quietly burrow his way beneath Edward's ice-cold skin.

Edward gracefully lowers himself into the nearby chair, calmly folds an ankle over his knee, and smiles at the one man he calls friend. "Then humor me, Father. Let them run some tests. Let them see if they can make you well." He doesn't say, _And soon, let them make you comfortable._

A pair of clear blue eyes gazes down at him from the bed with sudden gravity, but the voice is soft. "Only if you tell me where you've been these last days. These last few weeks, for that matter."

"Another time," Edward whispers. "You should rest, or at least pretend to sleep so that that old nurse will leave you alone."

Undeterred, Carlisle presses. "Where have you been, son?"

Edward's features pinch and his attention turns to the stiff white collar of the elder priest standing upright on the table beside the bed.

"Edward, do you realize what you're doing?" The question from any other would be accusing, but the thoughts behind this one are not. Even now, Carlisle's mind is a place that Edward has never encountered before, like always, absent of judgment, and in spite of his own physical decline, consumed only by inhuman kindness and worry for the young man beside him.

Swallowing, incapable of hiding from such thoughts and such a man, Edward closes his eyes. His own thoughts swarm like an angry hive of bees, the past and present, new guilt and old, all warring with a kind of hope he's never experienced. "No, I don't."

"What do you want?" The slow, steady ping of Carlisle's heart monitor punctuates each word.

"I don't know anymore." Raking a hand through his hair, Edward exhales and opens his eyes, seeking some kind of leave or absolution, or even condemnation – something to tell him what to do. "This is all I know." Absently, he reaches for the chain and cross around his neck, thumbing the raised edges of the Man situated in the middle he swore to serve. "This… this _thing_. It's new. I want–" A weight he has never imagined drapes across his sagging shoulders. "Father, forgive me, I'm so… lost."

Carlisle's bony hand reaches out and captures Edward's, squeezing. A long, hushed moment passes. "Are you truly lost, my son?" The elderly priest squeezes his feeble fingers again. "Or are you found?"

**~.~.~**

Edward's shoes echo loudly, the only sound in the silence.

Well into the early morning hours, the nave is empty once more. Lit only by the dim chandeliers in the front and the rows of red glass candles along the stone walls, the shadowy vastness of it is overwhelming, yet at the same time almost comforting.

He's unsure why he's come, but his feet carried him here, just as they now carry him down the aisle to his normal spot, just behind the second pew. Without thinking, Edward genuflects, dropping to his knees on the velvet cushion, and bows his head, resting his forehead on the curved back of the pew in front.

"God, why?" Edward breathes, clenching his fists, allowing the drowning to finally take him. "Why now? Why all of this? What have I done? What _haven't_ I done? Why do you despise me?"

Everything from today – Bella, Alice, Kacper, and now his ailing mentor – crashes around him, leaving his thoughts in a tangled web that he can't hope to escape. So much has been revealed, so many questions answered, so many left open, that he can barely think. In spite of the turmoil, however, above all, one thing is clear, undeniable and irrefutable. Edward wants the impossible, exactly what he's sworn to deny – to both God and himself.

"Am I interrupting?" a small voice calls.

Looking behind him, Alice stands just inside the tall wooden entry doors.

Wordlessly, Edward shakes his head, rising from his knees to sit on the bench behind him.

"How is he?" she asks, slowly making her way down the aisle.

As she sits down beside him, Edward shakes his head again and sighs. "You know already, don't you?"

Alice frowns. "I do. I smelled it, too. I wanted to be mistaken." Her shoulders fold inward, making her even smaller. "I'm sorry. I didn't see anything until I'd already arrived."

"Is that how your talent works? You see…"

_Yes,_ she answers silently. _Just as you hear. But with me, sometimes it's too erratic to act upon. Sometimes it's too late. Sometimes it's… just not my place to intervene._

Sitting no more than an arm's width apart, the two pale white vampires are quiet for a long moment, their bodies frozen, still in a way that only their kind can achieve. It's strange that after all this time, this is a first for Edward – to exist amongst his own and no longer hide.

"I found him in Philadelphia," she suddenly says.

Edward says nothing but leans back in the pew, closing his eyes as the images and sounds play through Alice's head. "He was… tired," she continues as she shifts, turning slightly to face him. "He was tired of killing. He feels them, you know. He feels everything."

"I lost contact with him less than six months after I turned him," Edward confesses, scrubbing his face as he recalls the bloodletting he'd been unable to stop. "I couldn't control him. He was young and strong and so full of anger. I had no idea. I just…"

"He's told me. He spent… _decades_ hunting them down – Paraguay, Argentina, even the U.S. – trying to avenge himself, his family, his people."

"He killed… _so many_. I shouldn't have–" Edward scrubs his face again. "I shouldn't have turned him. I should have let him die. He was supposed to. Like we all were. I stole his soul."

Alice laughs, but there's little humor there. "I think Jasper would disagree with you now. I _know_ he would. And… I'm glad you did."

Edward lets out a shaky breath. "But he looks…"

"I know." Smiling, Alice reaches out and touches the back of Edward's hand. The contact is unsettling, alien almost, even though they are the same temperature. "We're… good for each other. He finds peace in me." She looks at him then. "Just like you do in Bella."

"Why did you come?" he breathes. "I don't understand this at all. Why now? To tell me about Kacper?"

"I told you. To try to repay you for what you gave me, even if you don't recognize it. Even if you disagree with it." Leaning her head against the back of the pew, Alice looks upward, staring at the flicker of the dim chandelier, before closing her eyes. "See what I see."

A thin elderly woman with cropped gray hair slides across Alice's vision. Soft, gentle wrinkles line her face and pucker her mouth, and in her shaky hand, she holds the metal crook of a cane. Walking slowly, crossing a span of gray and white stone tiles, it taps a loud, jarring rhythm. It takes the woman a short forever to reach her goal, but when she does, she reaches out for another. A second hand appears in his periphery; only this new hand is as smooth as marble, and just as pale. When she looks up, a pair of dark, endless eyes – ones he'll never forget – are all he can see.

"What–" Edward stutters, breathless from the sudden sink of what he can only call dread or terror. "What was _that_?"

Unmoving, her face still aimed toward the sky, Alice waits a moment to finally answer. "She would have always found you, you know. Bella– she would have made her way wherever you were. I don't know how or why or what caused it, but I watched it happen for years. The time and place sometimes changed, but that she found you… that never did. I just… sped it up."

He barely hears her words, because the image of Bella, aged and withered, stabs him like no other. His chest constricts and his fists ball into tight hammers that threaten to take out every wall in this building. Still painting his nostrils, the death and deterioration of Father Carlisle's hospital bed comes to life once more, nearly sending him to his knees again.

"You have a choice." When his head swivels, Alice is no longer leaning back, but sitting up, staring into him – through him.

"What do you mean – a choice?" He's nearly panting. If it were even possible, he would say he's dizzy.

"Exactly what it sounds like. You have a choice… continue on as you are, here, doing this," she waves all around and at his uniform of black, "Or…"

A new image comes into focus, replacing the one that makes his entire being ache. It's Bella yet again, only this time sharp and alive in a rainbow of super-saturated blues and whites and deepest sable. Barefoot and golden-eyed, she's flying across a grassy plain, darting through a stand of mile-high pines, and then launching herself across a wide, stony creek, so fast that only he can follow. He does; Edward races behind her, laughing at the joy in her exhilaration.

The image morphs again. Alice and the one he once called Kacper are there, too.

"Two more would join us one day," Alice quietly adds, folding her hands in her lap. "A blonde and her mate. We would be six. Something… something like a family."

"What exactly am I seeing?" he asks, even though he knows.

"The same thing as before. It's the future, or a possible future. It's all up to you, Edward." She shrugs and gives him a weak smile, which tells him she doesn't know the outcome any more than he does. "But you'll have to turn her. And you're going to have to choose between this life – the one you know, the one you've dedicated yourself to – and the next. And you'll have to do it soon."

.

.


	12. Benedictus

**XII. Benedictus**

* * *

><p>Days pass like minutes, the weeks like mere hours.<p>

And now, three weeks after Father Carlisle's diagnosis, once more Edward finds himself enclosed by walls of mortar and stone.

Closing his eyes, he takes a deep, measured breath, and the air paints his tongue, rich, comforting, and all too familiar. Scents of a dozen perfumes and powders linger, leaving a cloying sweetness that mingles with and alters the normal spice and smoke of the vacant nave. While it's been more than half an hour since Edward dismissed them all, it's warmer in here, too, the space having been heated by the close press of more than five hundred bodies and their steaming breath.

Still shrouded in green and gold, with hands clasped behind his back, Edward slowly meanders up and down the center aisle. Staring at the statues of the long-dead saints that line the walls, he reflects with a strange kind of melancholy.

It's been a long time since he celebrated Mass to a full congregation, he thinks, even longer since it was the Solemn Mass. In so many ways, as he raised his hands, signing the cross and chanting the ancient dissonant prayers, it felt like coming home. Yet at the same time, despite Edward's years of service and despite his unfaltering knowledge of scripture, protocol, and practice, standing on the altar in the place of the church's figurehead, even temporarily, was… draining and daunting. Today, like last Sunday and the one before, Father Carlisle's absence was a palpable thing.

And then certainly there was Bella. Of course, her face is always present in his mind, but today, when he dared to look up, he found her sitting there in the back on the very last pew, staring with her dark, gleaming eyes that never once left his form. It was as though she could see… _everything_ in the way she regarded him – as though she could see the very soul he didn't possess.

Like always, he knew the moment she slipped through the door, for her heart hammers for him the loudest. Its cadence is a stamp, a deep, permanent etching that he knows he'll carry unto the end of days.

Edward stops in his tracks and gazes at the rainbow of shifting light passing through the stained glass window.

Interrupted by illness and the responsibility of an entire church, they had done nothing more than speak these last weeks, short, quiet nighttime chats consisting of everything and nothing. There had been no more condemning kisses, no more grasping hands; it was as if she too felt the weight on his shoulders. Nonetheless, with a longing that he cannot repress, Edward's lips never cease to recall the sensation of hers – the wash of rightness and place that had come with her barest touch. Every time he looks at her, every part of him wants her.

_"It's all up to you, Edward,"_ Alice had said. _"But you'll have to turn her. And you're going to have to choose between this life – the one you know, the one you've dedicated yourself to – and the next. And you'll have to do it soon."_

Edward still doesn't know what that _soon_ meant – what exactly Alice had been implying – but ever since that night, every time he delves into her mind, seeking out those answers, her thoughts somehow elude him, hiding amongst strings of numbers and faraway languages. When he asks, she only shakes her head.

Regardless, he's between a rock and a wall. It's an impossible situation and choice, one that makes him ache and makes him want to tear at his chest to dislodge the hurt. No matter what decision he makes, he will hurt. That much he knows. Especially now, especially since the church – _his_ church, from both then and now – is losing their faithful priest. They need him, and he swore his vows to God and man.

Love versus love.

Death versus death.

_Impossible_, Edward thinks again, screwing his eyes shut and again pacing the aisle by rote. "God, please," he whispers, as he fingers the glittering hem of the well-worn chasuble. His voice is soft, yet its echo is loud. "Just tell me what You want from me. What should I do? Is this punishment or a test? Why do you hate me so?"

"Father?"

So lost in thought, the boy's voice startles him.

Chuckling at happenstance, Edward looks up and finds Seth, now shed of his acolytic vestments. "Hey, Seth," he answers, stopping to allow the boy to approach. "Are you heading out now?"

"Yeah," he says, as he shoves his hands in his pockets and drags the toe of a tennis shoe across the stone floor. "I gotta get to the hospital."

Gone is the brief moment of joy Seth wore but an hour ago, and for a long moment, Edward frowns and stares at the boy's downcast expression. Tension rings his eyes, and his skin pulls too tight across the span of his forehead. It's a war of a face, a battle not to break. "Everything okay?"

Seth whips his head. "She's dying." His throat bobs and his voice cracks. "The chemo's not working this time. Mom says there's not much time left. Maybe… maybe a month or two."

The boy's thoughts speak to so much more. Saying nothing, Edward reaches over and rests a cool hand on the young one's shoulder. Beneath his palm, the muscles shudder with a faltering breath.

"I don't think she believes in God," Seth whispers. "What's going to happen to her, Father?"

This time it's Edward who swallows, overwhelmed by the depth of one so young. Lightly and ever so gently, he pats the boy's bony back. "I think she does. In her own way."

"She won't even take Communion," Seth breathes, his heart picking up in time. "I asked her if she would. She just yelled and cried."

Even without Seth's thoughts, Edward can see the scene as clear as day. After all, it's not so different from the one he witnesses each and every time he walks through her hospital door. "It's all right, son," he soothes. "Your sister… she argues with Him, but she believes. He won't abandon her." Edward looks out across the empty vastness of the room, his eyes darting to an invisible curl of smoke that's slowly rising, drifting upward and following its own haphazard, circuitous path. "Sometimes, Seth, people make their peace with God in different ways. And sometimes… sometimes, I think we are just too small to understand. But I can't help but think that He does."

"Will you visit her?" Seth asks, wiping away the wetness he doesn't want Edward to see.

"I will." Edward smiles a small smile as they begin to walk toward the sacristy. "I visit her nearly every day."

"Really?" Seth looks confused, his head tilted, his eyes dark and wet. "She didn't tell me that."

"Really. That is, when she doesn't kick me out." He smiles wider in memory. "I stop by when I visit Father Carlisle."

Seth's gaze drops to the floor. "He's dying, too. Isn't he? Why does everyone have to die?"

Edward nods, but when he speaks, in his mind he sees a different face. He sees the image that Alice gave him that night when they sat together on the second pew, the one that threatens to rip apart his sanity every time he thinks of it. So softly that Seth cannot hear, he whispers, "It's the way things are supposed to be."

**~.~.~**

It's late when Edward stops by the church again, somewhere past nine. As he makes his rounds, now back in his usual uniform of black, he notes that the warmth from before – that of the attending masses – has finally dissipated, and when he breathes in, the air holds only its normal spice. It's quiet, too, but for that of a single beating heart somewhere deep inside the nave.

_Not hers_, he thinks, as he steps through the vestibule doors. There are thoughts here, too, quiet, whispering ones that are all too reminiscent of the elderly man he just left downtown. Without needing to search, his eyes cut through the dim light, instantly landing on the shape standing at the very front, gazing up at the altar.

Haloed by the light, there is the cone of a long black cassock, the swinging tail of the tell-tale scarlet sash, the dome of a matching zucchetto.

"Your Excellency," Edward quietly greets, his voice bouncing off the stone walls. As he quickly walks down the aisle, the elderly man with wispy, snow-white hair turns and smiles. Surprised and humbled by this unexpected visitor, Edward ducks his head once he stops and kisses the ring. "I am unprepared for your visit."

"Father Edward, I presume?"

He nods.

"You're younger than Carlisle described." The archbishop's voice is thin and reedy, but not unkind, and while his mind is no sanctuary like Father Carlisle's, it's calm in a way that few ever achieve. Really, when Edward listens, he finds the man is mostly just trying to figure out how old Edward truly is. "He said you came out of Notre Dame."

"Yes, I did." _This time_, Edward silently adds.

The elderly man huffs but then grins. "No wonder Carlisle likes you so much. He's always been partial to his alma mater. I think he even wears a t-shirt underneath that old shirt and waistcoat he prefers."

Edward doesn't answer, but smiles because it's true.

A heavy silence descends, and for a long moment, neither man speaks; instead, both watch the flickering shadows that play across the altar. But it's in that quiet stillness, even without the change in the man's thoughts, that Edward hears… everything. The words are in the elderly man's posture, in the light purse of his lips, and in the way his thumb flicks across the back of his wrinkled hand. Edward doesn't need to ask why His Excellency has come to call.

And worse, instantly he understands what Alice meant by her _soon_, and in response, his insides twist and plummet.

"I spoke with him a month or so ago, before he went into the hospital," the archbishop starts, folding his hands together to still their motion. "Carlisle and I, we've been friends, you see, for a very long time." His smile is distant, nostalgic, as his mind wends its way back through time. Through the haze of human memory, Edward catches glimpses of a younger, yet familiar face. "Yes, some decades. We'll say it like that. It makes me feel less old."

He gazes up at the gilded images above the altar, waiting. In his pocket, he squeezes the rosary he always carries to nothing more than powder.

"You're young, but he has confidence in you," the man says.

Looking down, Edward breathes in through his nose. "His confidence in me is undeserved."

"Be that as it may, there is none other I trust more than my friend." The archbishop nods. "His judgment of character is… uncanny."

Edward closes his eyes.

"Father Carlisle's dying, my son. You will take his place here once he passes on."

**~.~.~**

Edward stares at the burgundy door before him, unsure why he's here now, only knowing that once the archbishop departed, it was the only place his feet would carry him.

To her.

And now that he's here, in his mind, all he can see are Alice's images. In a fast, rotating circuit that he cannot stop, Bella's face flashes before his eyes – as she is now, then old and wrinkled and gray, then cold and dead, then finally pale, white, and immortal. Each and every image is a twisting stab to his chest, each a wound for a different reason. There's an unrelenting war inside his head, a fearsome fight that makes his debates from before mere skirmishes.

Bella opens the door on the second knock, and when the door swings wide, Edward is instantly left staggered.

The normal smile she reserves just for him still decorates her lips, but the rest of her is different. Her whole body sags, folding inward as if in defeat, and the lift of her lips is offset by the flushed, heated crimson of her cheeks and the dark, wet shine of her eyes. Beneath those eyes that can see right through him, the hollows are swollen and gray.

When she looks up at him, however, in their churning depths, he sees _knowledge_.

And when Edward sips the air, perfumed by the decadence of her and the pungency of recently fallen tears, he knows why. He knows that Alice was just here.

"She told me," Bella whispers.

Edward's shoulders fall. "How much?" He wants so badly to be angry at the other vampire, but he's too far gone for that. The world as he knows it is spinning, spiraling down into a black abyss.

Instead of answering, she asks, "What did you tell him?" Her heart beats at a thundering gallop. It's so loud that he can barely hear her voice.

"I–" he starts, then stops, raking his hand through his hair.

"I love you," Bella says, reaching out and grasping the front of his jacket. He lets her pull him inside and lets her back him up against the wall. "I love you," she repeats, pulling herself so close that her breath cascades across his skin, warm and so very sweet. "You love me, too."

Edward swallows, because he does and because the idea of her loving him is too much. "Yes," he rasps. "But–"

"Then choose me!" Fat, hot droplets spill down her cheeks. Mirroring his own, the desperation and longing in her voice, something he's not heard from her before, cracks across his back like a whip. "I'm being selfish. I know it. I know it's probably wrong for me to ask. I know that you have vows and obligations and I know that the church needs you. And I know why you need it, too. But I want you… to choose me. To _love_ me. To _keep_ me."

Despising what he sees, Edward takes Bella's face between his hands and thumbs away her tears. For a split second, he pictures that idealized maybe-future, watching himself chase her lithe form running between the trees, watching himself catch her and kiss her and push her up against the nearest tree – watching himself love her in every way.

"I _can't_." It comes out as little more than a lamenting cry. Desperate for what he swore not to take, he presses his lips to her forehead, closing his eyes as he inhales. "It's not just… this…" Edward tugs at his collar, pulling it free, and drops it to the floor. "Or the church. Or my vows."

His body shudders when she pushes her hands inside his jacket, crawling beneath his shirt to find bare skin. It feels as though she's branding him. Because she is, for all time, every breath he'll ever take.

Unable to stop himself, Edward's cold mouth is suddenly on Bella's hot one and his fingers wind through the silken strands of her hair, holding her face firmly to his. "I can't take your soul, Bella," he breathes against her lips. "I can't. Not you. I can't damn you."

"Why isn't it my decision, too?" she cries back as she presses herself tighter against him. Her arms snake around his waist, and the heat of her body bleeds through him. When he feels the shape of her, the warmth, the way she trembles, he lets loose a strangled cry and his lips trail down her neck, tasting, loving, wanting _her_ – not her blood – so much that he can barely stand it. "How do you know that this isn't meant to be? That this isn't what God meant for you?"

"I can't," Edward whispers again, shaking his head, cursing God and himself.

Bella chokes and the wetness from her face burns him as much as the hot press of her against him. Without warning, she pushes his jacket off his shoulders and down his arms, and with shaking fingers, she pulls at the stays of his shirt.

"Then at least give me this. At least love me now. Just once."

.

.

* * *

><p>A few brief comments on some specifically Catholic details mentioned in this chapter:<p>

- Solemn Mass, or High Mass, is the full form of the Tridentine Mass, also known as the Latin Mass or the Traditional Mass, which was used from 1570 to 1962. Over the last several decades, there have been various alterations and whatnot to liturgical ceremonies, including language, format, verbiage, etc. In 2007, however, Pope Benedict XVI issued a _motu proprio_, which allows, amongst other things, the use of the Tridentine Mass when and where appropriate and at the discretion of the parish priest. Above, as he's standing in for Father Carlisle, Edward chose to observe the more traditional service, you can assume in honor of his ailing mentor.

- The color of the chasuble worn by a priest depends on the day and/or the event in the liturgical calendar. For ordinary Sundays, it's green, hence Edward is in green in that same top segment.

- "Your Excellency" is an appropriate greeting for a bishop or an archbishop.


	13. Agnus Dei

**XIII. Agnus Dei**

* * *

><p>Like most other nights this season, tonight the air is frigid, somewhere well below zero, and the dark wind whipping down from the lake carries with it swirling walls of white confetti that glimmer beneath the silver moon. High above, far past the reach of false human light, the stars twinkle and shine, pinpoints of brightness against the navy sky.<p>

Frozen in place, still in a way that only the marble statues can achieve, Edward stares down at a slab of weathered granite. It's old, its face pitted from years of wind and rain, and the once sharp, square-faced letters it bears are now rounded and smooth to the touch.

_Edward Anthony Masen  
>Beloved Son<br>1901-1918_

His name, it reads, yet his eyes see another's.

_Hers. _

Etched deep into the stone where it will never wear.

Always hers, Edward thinks, as his eyes flutter shut. Everything, until he's finally dust, will always be her.

Even though it's been hours since he left her apartment, when he breathes in the frosty air, Edward can still smell Bella on his skin. Seared down into his very bones, flawlessly preserved for all time and all place, the perfume they made together last night will never fade or wash away. It's a part of him now, he knows, as tangible and real as the hands that gripped her hips and as the lips that kissed away her secrets.

Here in this lonely graveyard, over and over in an endless loop, as though watching a movie play behind his closed lids, Edward relives both heaven and hell.

His fingers curl with the arch of her spine and the flush of her porcelain cheeks, and his lips wet at the silent echo of her thundering pulse pounding through his empty chest, recalling the way it hammered him into something new. In time to the invisible, warm and humid pants against the hollow of his neck, his breath quickens.

So many hours afterward, for Edward, the grounding and peace and rightness – that foreign sense of being surrounded, of being loved, and of being made whole – is overwhelming. It's just as strong and just as shattering as the desolation and utter despair that now consumes him, too – that consumed him the very moment Bella's eyes opened to the morning light.

"_I'm sorry,"_ was the first thing she'd said, even as her fingers sought out the valleys between his ribs. _"I shouldn't have. I shouldn't have pushed… shouldn't have made you. I just wanted… something of you. You probably hate me."_

"_Shh, you made me do nothing," _he'd answered, dragging his lips across her so-warm skin, for theirs was a sin he was willing to bear. _"You gave me… everything. I cannot… I will never, ever hate you."_

"_I-"_

"_I love you,"_ Edward had whispered, tucking her head beneath his chin, unwilling to let her go just yet.

"_I wish… I want to be so mad at you," _Bella had breathed, pressing his palm between her breasts. _"But it hurts. It hurts here."_

Kissing her softly, all he'd been able to say was, _"I know,"_ because he did. He does. So much, and the pain of separation is nearly crippling.

_You're choosing wrong,_ Alice silently calls out.

He should be surprised by the other vampire's unexpected appearance but he's not, and when Edward looks up in acknowledgment, she slips inside the old wrought iron gate and slowly picks her way between the rows of snow-capped stones. In her mind, he sees the same haunting circuit of Bella from before – now, old, dead, and immortal – spinning so fast that he's unsure how, even with their expanded faculties, Alice can focus on anything else.

"Is there a right?" he hears himself ask.

Because right now, Edward truly doesn't know. Instead of the certainty he'd expected once he finally walked out through Bella's apartment, he's a mournful mass of confusion and loss, as his mind and heart still struggle, both trying to reconcile guilt with guilt, need with want.

He's talked to his God – talked to him all day long – but only silence answers him when he calls.

"Why did you tell her, Alice?"

"Because it's her future, too."

Arms folded across her chest, Alice leans against the nearest stone, and abruptly, the images in her mind still and condense into a single, hazy scene. Like her visions of Carlisle, it's a vague one, but even so, there is no mistaking the stacks of clothes, the folded boxes, or the pictures taken from the walls. None of those things register, however, because as though he's there, through the shadow of the future, Edward sees Bella, doubled over on her unmade bed, fisting the sheets to keep from falling over.

Something inside of him – the corresponding part – cracks in two, and as if beaten, he lists from side to side.

"She's going to leave," Alice finally says. Her voice is quiet, but the surety of it – of that future – is indisputable, and it's another brutal strike to his midsection. "I don't know when exactly, but she won't be able to stay here if you really do take Father Carlisle's place. She won't be able to bear it. Neither will you."

"You don't understand." Edward's fists clench into tight balls. "I'd be stealing her immortal soul just like I stole Jasper's. There is no greater act of selfishness, no greater sin than that."

"I don't believe that," she softly answers, shaking her head. "You're stealing from her only by not choosing your rightful mate, by not honoring her choice."

A sharp stab makes him wince.

"Forget everything else I've told you. Forget Jasper!" Alice suddenly yells. Louder in her anger, her words bounce off the walls of marble and granite. "She wants it, Edward. She wants a life – eternity – with you. Don't you know that? Are you blind? Do you think we're all paired off by _chance_? Can't you see what you're being _given_?"

"I don't deserve it," he whispers into the wind. A second later, he adds, his voice flat and lifeless, repeating by rote the words he's told himself a thousand times, "I don't know how to be anything other than this." Speeding down the long litany of names and faces, Edward fingers the hem of his lapel and moves to clutch the thin chain that circles his neck. "And I owe it for all the evil I've done. For what I am."

"I don't believe that either. That," she says, as she waves her hand at the black uniform he wears,_ "was_ what you needed. Not now." Alice huffs and shakes her head harder before her voice drops back down to a tired whisper. "You should know that in watching Bella all these years, I've watched you, too. Trust me. I've seen. You've paid your dues."

**~.~.~**

Three more nights have passed, and with each one, Edward realizes that Alice is more right than she knows. For each night – each hour – it grows harder and harder to stay away, no matter how much he prays, no matter how much he begs for mercy. Twice now, he's found himself out on the street, staring up at the bright-lit square of Bella's bedroom window, thinking and wanting, as though waiting for some sign to fall from the heavens.

"_How can you even think you that you have no soul? Or that you're damned?" _Bella had asked before he finally turned to walk away. "_You're not. I don't know about being Catholic or exactly what or who God is… But I know this. If you didn't still have a soul you wouldn't do what you do. You wouldn't try so hard… You wouldn't love me. Or love God as much as I know you do. You do have one, Edward, and it's so… good." _

Her soft, whispered words are now all he can hear, strange and haunting, so similar to those shouted at him in the graveyard. It's what he most wants to hear, so tempting to believe, and despite his own mind battling against him, at least one phrase Bella said still holds purchase and gives him pause. It rankles and disrupts the years of thought and etched belief.

It's what drove his desolate, wandering feet here, downtown, away from both the call of the empty church and that of the woman who'd take its place.

"You're looking well, Father," Edward lies, smiling as he closes the heavy oak door behind him. The heels of his polished oxfords snap too loudly against the tile.

Glancing up from the worn, leather bound book in his lap, the elderly man cocks one pale white brow and grins, shifting the clear tube that rests above his upper lip. "Son, you are a _terrible_ liar."

Lips twitching as he assumes his normal post in the chair beside the bed, Edward reaches for one of the other books on the table and with feigned interest, thumbs through the yellowed pages. They're almost as old as him. "I suppose that's not a bad thing. Would you prefer the alternative?"

"You need to work on your bedside manner," Carlisle laughs.

"Perhaps. Or maybe you need to be a less difficult patient." Edward smiles again, this time sincerely, because it's astounding how despite the cancer gradually spreading through his aging body, right now, Father Carlisle is… _happy_. His mind is a peaceful, soothing place – a smooth glassy lake, transparent to the very bottom.

"You're here late tonight."

Crossing one leg over the other and steepling his fingers, Edward slowly nods. He's unsure how to explain that he's late because he's spent the last twelve hours alone in the church, stationed on his usual pew, arguing, begging, and contemplating the existence of souls and God and hell and heaven – all to no avail.

Instead, he merely shrugs, and they then spend the next half hour speaking of normal mundane things like the kitchen's stock, their weekly funds, and the pale gray dust that always seems to gather in the sanctuary. They're all safe topics, nowhere close to the elderly priest's impending death or the wounds tearing Edward apart inside. But Edward knows that it gives the other man some measure of comfort to know what's going on in his _home_ – to know that it's being looked after well in his absence.

Eventually, as the minutes wear on, the two men grow quiet, however, each alone with their thoughts, both turning inward in reflection. For what feels like hours, the only sound in the room is the soft, ragged rasp of Carlisle's lungs and the slow, regular ping of his heart monitor.

Carlisle is almost asleep when he abruptly clears his throat. Hands loosely clasped in his lap, his eyes close and he turns his face toward the ceiling. "Did I ever tell you that I was once in love?"

For a split-second, Edward can't believe what he's just heard and his head automatically swivels to the right. Inside of Carlisle's mind, in the middle of that glassy lake, a face suddenly appears, rising through the water. No more than twenty-five, with long, carefully curled caramel tresses and a pair gleaming, mischievous eyes, her features are soft and round, the picture of a bygone era. It's a face that Edward has never seen before, and he doesn't know why or how he's missed it. Because she's as clear and as bold as a living, breathing photograph.

"No," Edward quietly replies. "You never told me that."

"I was supposed to marry her."

Edward blinks in confusion.

"Esme Platt was her name. Beautiful girl." Carlisle's voice is soft and distant, wistful almost, and in unconscious movement, he dry-washes his hands, rubbing away the hurt in his swollen joints. "We were in high school together. I won't tell you the year or you'll call me ancient."

Edward knows it anyway, and it certainly doesn't make him ancient – at least not in comparison – so all he asks is, "Why didn't you?"

"I went away to college." The old man chuckles and shakes his head. "A doctor. That's what I was going to be. Big dreams."

For the first time since he's met him, Carlisle the priest falls away, replaced by someone else entirely, and Edward knows better than to push or prod. Instead, with rapt attention, he merely listens and watches the foggy, all-too-human memories come and go.

"Her father was a miserable man. A drunkard, and I fear was sometimes abusive, though I never had any proof. But he didn't like me much and didn't believe me when I said I intended on marrying his daughter. We did that back then, by the way – talk to the father first. Or at least I did."

Edward _almost _laughs, and Father Carlisle _almost_ catches him when his bright, crinkly eyes land on Edward's honey-colored ones. He does catch something, however. For a brief moment a silent, mutual understanding passes between them, one that shouldn't be possible between the elderly man and someone so young. Edward looks away first.

Tapping his chin, blue eyes glinting in the low light, the priest pauses for a too-long second, but says nothing to acknowledge Edward's slip. As though it never happened at all, he goes on. "When I came home for Christmas, though… he'd convinced her of it – that I wasn't serious about her. To this day, I don't know why she ever believed that old man. I was so angry with her for it, too. But for whatever reason, she did and she let him marry her off to a man far too much like her father for my liking."

"But–"

Quieter, sadder, he says, "I saw her some time later. Maybe a year. My Esme was going to have this other man's baby." Carlisle's chin drops to his chest and his brows slant sharply. "It could have been mine if not for... well, you know. Almost killed me."

A younger man could never understand this kind of sorrow, Edward knows. But _he_ does. He knows what it means to lose a future, to have it all stolen away, so they're quiet for a long while again, and this time the silence in the room is heavy and forlorn – thick with regret and age and a hint of bitterness.

The clock on the wall ticks past ten when Edward softly asks, "You chose the Church then?" It's less a question, more a statement.

"Not right away. I did that after Esme passed." Carlisle swallows and his eyes darken and wet, seeing that same lovely face, pale and gone. "Her baby died before he turned two. And she was… she was inconsolable. And she followed shortly afterward, by her own hand." As if drawn, his fingers find and lightly trace the gold script on the face of the book in his lap. "I found God because _I_ was inconsolable."

"Why do you tell me this?" Edward whispers, as his own fingers dig into yellow pages.

Carlisle eyes him, taking him in from head to toe, lingering on the same white square he's worn for years. "Do you wear that collar and cross because you want to or because you think you have to?"

The air freezes, flashing Edward's already cold skin to ice. It takes him a moment to answer, because the question came out of nowhere, and it hits far, far too close to home. When he does finally find the wherewithal to speak, his voice is thin and hoarse. "Both, I think. I'm not sure anymore."

Their eyes lock once more. "How old are you, Edward?"

Years of training and hiding force a tight, plastered on smile, and the automatic, engrained, self-protective response kicks in. "You know the answer to that."

"Yes, I know what you've told me and what the transcript says." Head tilted in study, mind clear, with no hint of judgment or verdict, Carlisle asks again, "But I want you to tell me now. How old are you?"

Inside, Edward is reeling. The world has suddenly inverted, down now up, inside now out, and he's left adrift, grasping for any kind of certainty or grounding. Just how this man _knows_, Edward can't begin to guess. Unsure exactly why, however, if it's sorrow, or guilt, or the long years of solitude, he finds the truth suddenly spilling out of his mouth as if his body willfully purges it.

"Older than you," he breathes.

Carlisle's eyes close and a smile plays at the corners of his mouth. "And how long have you worn that collar?"

This time, Edward's eyes shut, too, as years upon years flash through the vast cavern of his vampire mind – countless broken individuals, countless beseeching confessions, endless nights praying for the lost.

"Longer than you."

Whatever Edward expected – disbelief, abhorrence, some kind of rightful condemnation – Carlisle's reaction is not it. Instead, the elderly man coughs a loud, wheezy, triumphant laugh that shakes his bony shoulders. "I _knew_ it."

Shock speeds through Edward's frame, turning him into a statue. Incredulous, he can only manage a sharp inhale and a roughly spoken, "How?"

Louder, Carlisle laughs again and slaps his palm against his thigh. To Edward, his amusement is incomprehensible. "Son, no one coming out of seminary knows that much scripture by heart. You gave yourself away the very first study session when you quoted half of Isaiah without looking down."

Swallowing, Edward grips the armrests of his chair, as again the earth as he knows it falls away. He doesn't understand – he can't. He should have seen it, he thinks, should have heard _something_ in the man's thoughts, but as he peels back the memories, searching through each and every interaction, all he can come up with is the profound kindness and compassion that set apart Carlisle's thoughts from all others.

"Why didn't you say anything?" _Why haven't you asked me how? Or what I am?_ he wants to say.

The laughter abruptly silences, and with a conviction that Edward can't fathom, Carlisle answers, "Because it doesn't matter. Doesn't matter who you were before. I just know who you are now."

They are words that dig deep beneath the skin, ones that seek out all the dark parts of him, as though casting a bright, white spotlight.

"Do you remember what you asked me when you flew off to Canada that night?"

He replies without thinking, still so lost, so stunned. "I asked you if He listened. You said He did."

"Yes, I did." Carlisle opens the book in his lap and flips toward the back, skimming through the thick rows of black and red text. Staring down at the fragile page, he says, "You also asked me if God answered." His forefinger lands on a familiar block of red, one he's offered himself to so many.

"_Whatever you ask in my name, this I will do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If you ask me anything in my name, I will do it… I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you. Yet a little while and the world will see me no more, but you will see me. Because I live, you also will live."_

"What did I say to you?"

"Never in the way I expect." His voice sounds hollow to his ears, echoing and resounding through his empty shell of a body.

Time halts when Carlisle looks up. "Son, this life isn't for you anymore."

Edward isn't sure how or why, but a weight suddenly falls into the pit of his stomach. The room lurches forward, and the chair he's sitting in vanishes. "But I can't… " Edward hears himself whisper. "I don't know how… It's the only way."

"Only way what?" Carlisle gently asks, as he closes the book again and presses his palm against the leather cover.

Edward's eyes screw shut and his hand automatically targets the rosary in his coat pocket. "That I can be forgiven."

"Have you asked?"

"For what?"

With a quiet sigh, Carlisle says a single word. "Forgiveness."

Nodding, furiously so, incapable of hiding the decades of desperation, Edward answers, "Countless times. So many times. Every day."

"It only takes once. You know that."

Shoulders falling in defeat, Edward buries his face in his palms. The weight in his stomach seems to grow heavier with each passing second. It's a wonder he's still upright. "Not for me. You don't understand all that I've done. What I _am_."

"You are a child of God. Just like I am. You may live longer – maybe _much_ longer, I don't know – but don't you think that He has a place planned for you, too?"

"I-" Edward starts and then stops. Between his fingers, he sees a withered hand with a trailing IV reach across the space between them to pull his hands away from his face. The elderly man's skin is a fever to his ice, and the warmth probes through and through, shooting down into his very bones, leaving him almost gasping. "That girl is for you," Carlisle quietly says. "She's your Heaven on earth and your eternal life until He calls us all."

When Edward opens his eyes again, the violet glow from the overhead light frames the dying priest's head like a halo, and that same warmth surges inside Edward's chest, filling it, expanding it.

"Go on," Carlisle whispers, shaking his head, breaking that momentary image. "You've served a lifetime and have helped so many. Accept what God's giving you now. Happiness. Fulfillment. Love… It's a reward, Edward. You must see that. Turning in your collar doesn't mean that you're turning your back on Him. You can have _both_."

For the first time since he climbed out of that dark, Chicago gutter so many decades ago, changed, abandoned, and alone, Edward suddenly sees… _clearly_, as though a shadowy veil has lifted, and the path before him is lit and true. Never has he felt more alive – never closer to the One he's served than he is right now.

Squeezing Edward's trembling hand, Carlisle says, "I only ask that you do one thing for me, as my friend, before you leave today for good."

Edward's head shoots up, hearing the unfathomable in Carlisle's mind. "I don't need to lea–"

"Yes, you do. Stop wasting time."

"You have nothing to Confess." Edward's throat bobs, yet still he clasps the man's hand between both of his. His heartbeat thrums, a slow, steady, sure cadence that he'll remember for all time.

"Of course, I do. We_ all _sin. " Carlisle laughs again, but this time, it's a tired laugh, weary from all the years. "It's what makes us human. That we seek redemption is what saves our souls."

.

.

* * *

><p>The verses quoted above are from <strong>John 14<strong>.


	14. Lux aeterna

**XIV. Lux aeterna**

* * *

><p>"You came back."<p>

Slowly, Edward turns to face the dark-haired boy in mourning. Like all those here in the graveyard, his face is drawn, tired from sleepless nights, and his eyes are rimmed an angry red. Yet when Edward offers a hesitant, gentle smile, Seth's lips automatically stretch in response, and unmistakable, welcoming warmth spreads through his thoughts.

"I did," Edward quietly says. When the boy falls in beside him, as if the three months he's been gone never passed, they begin a long, familiar circuit around the rows of mottled gray granite and marble. Carefully, watching Seth's reaction in his periphery, he adds, "I promised your sister I would."

For a moment, Seth doesn't answer. As he shoves his hands deep inside his pockets, his gaze diverts down to the bright spring grass. With a sharp frown, he huddles inside his thin wool jacket, but Edward knows that his actions have nothing to do with the lingering chill in the early April air. Chewing the inside of his cheek, he thinks hard about what exactly he wants to say – weeks worth of questions and confusion – before he finally settles on a simple statement. "You saw her right before she died," he says. His words waver and crack at the end.

Nodding, Edward mimics the boy's posture and solemn expression, recalling the tired, frail teenaged girl who'd barely been able to speak when he'd last held her hand. "Yes," he murmurs. "She called me late last week. I came down and stayed with her for a little while one afternoon."

Seth swallows. "Mom said she was… _different_ after you left. Like maybe… like maybe she was okay with what was happening." When the boy looks up, his eyes are wide and glassy, and beads of shimmering wetness gather along the lower lids. Even without his gift of hearing, Edward would know what those unshed tears represent, but because he does hear, there is no doubt at all. For inside Seth's mind, brighter and louder than the loss and sorrow, there is unexpected hope, a selfless, compassionate hope for final peace for a dying sister, and it bleeds into his voice when he presses, "Was she? Was she okay with it?"

Like always around this particular boy, the gentleness and faith in someone so young is moving – humbling – and in response, Edward's lungs swell with a deep breath of air that stretches him from the inside out. Mingled in with the calming sweetness of the early blossoms, the acrid fragrance of freshly broken earth coats his mouth and tongue, and without thinking, in response, his pale golden eyes lift to scan the horizon before focusing on a second dark green tent in the distance. Like the one they just departed, it's the somber marker of yet another loved one gone – this one a man, mentor, confessor, and friend – and the sight of it sends through him a pang of bittersweet sadness that Edward is sure will never truly fade.

"I think she was," he answers, his voice distant and hollow. Hidden inside his hand, in unconscious habit, Edward's thumb smoothes over the old strand of beads he still carries with him. "I think she found whatever it was she was searching for and made her own kind of peace with God."

The boy's lips pinch together but then he nods, seemingly content with Edward's response after no more than a second of contemplation, as if those few words were all he truly needed to hear. As they pass along the western wall, the two turn quiet again, so much so that to Edward, in the distance, the waves softly lapping against the shore of the lake sound like peals of thunder.

"It's weird you being in a tie," Seth suddenly blurts.

Surprised by both the abrupt loudness and turn in topic, Edward's head jerks left and his eyes widen, and when he sees the faint pink spots of shame decorating Seth's cheeks and the way he looks as though he wants to sink into the ground, Edward wants to laugh. Especially so when he hears the one phrase the boy _doesn't_ say – at least not aloud:

That it's even _weirder_ seeing the circle of shiny gold around Edward's finger.

As much as he wants to, Edward doesn't laugh, however, at neither the remarks concerning his attire, nor the ones concerning his choice in eternal companion.

Because the boy is right; it _is_ strange.

All of it.

The black suit, so similar yet so different from the uniform he's always worn. The dark, neatly patterned fabric knotted around his neck that now replaces the old square of virgin white.

The emblem around his finger that marks him as hers instead of the long chain and cross that marked him as His.

The cabin in the heart of the vast boreal forest, mere miles from the arctic line, that he – _they_ – now call home.

It's all a world away from these gray walls of mortar and stone. It's a world away from everything he thought he knew. As joyous and happy as Edward is, as much as he thanks God each day for what he's been given, still, there is no denying that the existence he now leads is not the one he'd envisioned over these last decades. Nor can he say that the transition has all been easy. Finally biting her had almost killed him.

"I'm just now getting used to it myself," Edward hears himself say, answering far more than the boy asks.

"Fa– I mean, Edward?" Seth stutters.

Shaking his head to clear the cobwebs, Edward looks down and then smiles, oddly grateful for the boy's inadvertent slip. For whatever reason, it's a reminder and at the same time, almost like coming home, if only to visit.

"Yeah?"

The spots of color have faded, but Edward still feels the extra degree of heat from Seth's discomfort. His heart rate ticks up in time, too, and before he opens his mouth to speak, Edward already knows why. "Can I… can I ask you a question?"

Softly, his eyes returning to the triangle top of the green tent in the distance, Edward replies, "Of course, you can." Because the boy deserves at least _some_ answers.

"Do you regret leaving?"

Sighing because there is no simple response to Seth's query – at least not one that he's capable of sharing – Edward rakes his fingers through his hair, fighting a useless battle against the ever-constant wind.

"Yes and no," he says after a moment. The words come slowly, as though he's deciding then and there. "It wasn't an easy decision – leaving, that is. In fact… there has never been a harder one for me. Some days it's still hard. Meaning that sometimes I miss…" He pauses, tilts his head, and haphazardly waves toward the towering structure nearby. "I miss all this. The people. Teaching. The shelter. Doing all the things I used to do every single day – the routine of serving in this particular way. This was home for me." He stops again, but this time Edwards smiles because the flawless face of the woman who kissed him yesterday before he left and the same one who will kiss him hello when he returns tomorrow flashes through his mind. "But… for me, it was the right thing to do."

Clearing his throat, Seth buys a little bit of time before asking what he most wants to know. "It was Bella, right?"

"Partly," he admits, as he spins the ring around his finger. "It was more me."

While he'd like to know more – as would most of the parish – Seth chooses not to ask for the details Edward doesn't want to give. Instead, his shoulders slump a little and like the teenager he is, he drags his toes, leaving a dark line that cuts through the grass. He moves the conversation yet again. "It's… _different_ now that you're gone."

Out of habit, Edward clasps his hands behind his back. "I know."

"I don't really like Father Samuel." The boy's nose crinkles as he pictures a russet-skinned man wearing a pinched, always-serious expression. "He's kind of… I don't know. He's strict about stuff you never cared about. And don't tell him, but he's kind of boring."

Edward grins and laughs, lifting his face toward the pale gray sky. "Come on, he's all right," he says, even as his frame still shakes. He's met his successor after all, and Seth's blunt appraisal isn't far from the mark. Sam _is_ strict and he _is_ boring. But Edward knows that he's a good man, too. "You just have to… show him the ropes. Or just… humor him like you did me."

Seth finally cracks a grin. "I guess. I don't think he'll ever learn, though."

"Maybe. Maybe not." When Seth drops his gaze to the ground again, turning quiet both outwardly as well as inwardly, the laughter ceases, and Edward lightly places his palm on the boy's shoulder.

"I miss you, too," he breathes, because he does. Edward misses the boy's mind and company. He misses the kindness and goodness that radiates out from him – evidence of everything he believes. "Just because I'm no longer here and my… job… description has changed, you can always call me."

As he hands him a small ivory card with nothing more on it than a row of neatly printed numbers and dashes, Edward pictures the blurry scene that Alice gave him just before he and Bella left Chicago.

In that maybe-future is Seth – tall, lanky, and aged some ten to fifteen years – and he's smiling with his entire face. He steps through a pair of heavy oak doors, and as he walks, his heels click loudly against hard stone. Framed against the warm flickering candlelight, he's a dark yet familiar figure, one cut all in black. A square of white rests against his throat.

The boy eyes the card like a prize before taking it and slipping it into his pocket. "Really? You don't mind?"

Edward's lips turn up and he steals another glance across the way. "You call, and I'll be here. Always."

**~.~.~**

She's faster than Alice said she would be. At least that's the way it seems, and as they dart between stands of dark green spruce and fly across hidden fields of swaying grass, it's no easy task to catch up to her. Bella's strides are long and stretching, fueled by the richness and strength of the human blood that still lingers and infuses her hardened muscles, and now, as she runs from him, she's little more than a pale white flash against the shadow of the forest.

She loves to run.

He loves to watch her.

Graceful, lithe, and strong, with her head thrown back and hair streaming in ribbons, she's utterly captivating. She laughs as she runs, something she seems to do a lot of anyway.

"Come on, old man," Bella calls over her shoulder, as she leaps across a rock bed river, wide and now rushing from the gradual spring thaw.

Gladly taking the bait, Edward grins and steps up his efforts. A fan of dirt and debris kick from his heels, and as he races forward, silky strands of air part across his face and flow past his ears, bringing with them scents of pine, earth, and the cleanness of melting snow.

Sometimes he forgets just how fast _he_ truly is.

So he catches her.

Perhaps rougher than he intended, Edward's arms wrap around Bella's waist and the two tumble to the ground, laughing and rolling like boulders, leaving a wide swath of destruction in their wake.

"Old man?" he asks when they finally come to a halt. "I can still catch _you_."

Bella laughs, a loud, throaty sound that makes his heart and chest feel warm and full, and she winds her slender arms around his neck. "No fair," she says, pressing her lips to his. "You cheat."

"I do not," he scoffs, rolling them over, reluctantly dragging his mouth away from hers. "I still can't hear you. I should get _something_ out of this deal, you know."

When he thumbs the long, elegant column of Bella's neck, tracing the curved, shimmering crescent above her jugular, she smiles, but Edward doesn't miss that she winces, too. "You haven't fed?" he asks, kissing that mark he left twelve weeks past.

Bella shakes her head. "I wanted to wait for you."

"Why? Alice said you'd be fine."

"I know." Her gradually lightening eyes slide away from his. "I was afraid."

Edward's brows slant. "Of?" His voice is soft, caressing, because he knows.

"I don't trust myself yet," Bella says. "What if… what if someone was there and I couldn't stop?"

She doesn't have to say anything else, because even though he can't hear her, he can see the memory in her eyes. Two weeks changed, she almost succumbed when a solitary hunter stumbled into their woods, and only Edward's iron grip had kept her at bay.

"It's all right. I understand." Gently, he pushes back a strand of tangled, wind-blown hair, tucking it behind her ear.

"It's hard," she whispers, swallowing back what he knows to be liquid fire. "Much harder than I thought."

Slowly, Edward nods and then brushes his lips across her temple, then her cheek, then her lips, repeating the circuit until she shivers in his arms. With a sigh, her fingers thread through the short hair at the nape of his neck. "You're distracting me."

His shoulders shake and he grins against her. "I know. You're still young, so it's easy to do."

"I still don't understand how you stood being so close to me."

"Simple. You smelled like a dream." The corner of his mouth lifts into an arrogant smirk, something he's just now learning to do, but then he grows serious. "No, but really, being in the same room with you was Hell those first few times. And even later, resisting you was one of the hardest things I've ever had to do."

Bella doesn't ask him what was _the_ hardest thing he's ever done. She knows as well as he does. She knew it the moment he appeared on her doorstep that night after dark, eyes filled with mourning and fire.

"_I choose you,"_ he'd said, as he dropped to his knees before her.

"Are you okay?" Edward asks, as he lightly strokes her skin. "Do you want to hunt now?"

"Not just yet. It's not unbearable. I just want to be like this for a minute." Bella rests her cheek against Edward's sternum, listening to the resounding silence. "Are _you_ okay?" she whispers.

Holding her tightly to his chest, Edward closes his eyes and pictures the path Seth and he had walked the other day. As they had turned the final corner, making their way back to Leah's grave, Edward's gaze drifted to the right where an old ramshackle building, a small clapboard thing with faded paint and crooked steps where St. Mark's old groundskeeper keeps his tools, still stands.

Intact and proud, after more than a century of wear, that small building is about the size of the church just outside of Arviat that he briefly visits each week. Worlds away, he thinks to himself again. Yet when he kneels behind the rough-hewn pine pew in the tiny northern church and when his head bows and he makes the cross, Edward knows.

His eyes open and for a second, the bright sun climbing across the cloudless sky is almost blinding. "I'm more than okay," he finally says.

Because Edward knows that Father Carlisle was right. That he no longer has to ask for the forgiveness that's already been given. That long-lived doesn't mean forever-dead. That he can love God and love Bella, too.

They were all right.

He has both.

.

.

* * *

><p><em><strong>Finis<strong>_

**Thank you for reading!**


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